While Taupō District Council’s Longterm Plan 2024–34 is currently guiding priorities for the district, the first steps to develop the next Longterm Plan with the community are now getting underway.

Every three years Taupō District Council develops a Long-term Plan that sets the direction and budget over the next 10 years. The Long-term Plan process supports the community and council to make decisions about where best to put council’s time and the community’s money. It details the projects Council intends to deliver and the services it will provide, and how it plans to pay for them.

The Long-term Plan must balance affordability with the projects the community has asked for as well as make provision to look after Council’s assets, so they remain in good shape into the future. It must consider how to operate services and facilities such as swimming pools and community halls in a way that balances accessibility to the community with the cost to the ratepayer.

External pressures, including the ever-increasing cost of providing infrastructure such as roads and pipe networks, have put council and ratepayers under financial pressure in recent years. In addition, councils are grappling with the effects of climate change, additional responsibilities from central government and significant changes to key legislation including Local Water Done Well, planning and building changes and Resource Management Act reforms.

“This Long-term Plan will arrive in quite a different world from our last Long-term Plan,” says council’s general manager of strategy and environment, Warrick Zander. “Our elected members will need to decide the split between rates subsidies and user-pays for council services, prepare for the move to a potentially rates-capped environment in 2029 and explore what’s important to the community. It’s a huge balancing act and will require a lot of careful thought and some really tough decisions.”

From 3 March there will be a series of workshops for councillors to work through all aspects of the plan, set strategic direction, confirm priorities and discuss levels of service for all council activities. Most are open to the public and will be livestreamed and recorded. The workshop schedule, livestream link and more information about the Long-term Plan development can be found on council’s website at www.taupo.govt.nz/LTP27

In addition to the Long-term Plan, Council must also prepare a Water Services Strategy, as a result of the Local Water Done Well reforms. A Water Services Strategy is essentially a Long-term Plan for council’s water services. While it will be developed alongside the Long-term Plan, it is a separate document.

As part of the work preparing the Long-term Plan, Council’s community engagement team will be coming to local communities in late April or May to talk about what they want to see for the Taupō District, themselves, their communities and for future generations. The feedback received will be taken into account when preparing the draft Long-term Plan. Following that, there will be a full consultation process in early 2027 where people will have the opportunity to provide their views before the final plan is adopted in the middle of 2027.

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