No rise for eight ridings in Waimairi

Press, 26 May 1983, Page 1

No rise for eight ridings in Waimairi

No general rate rises will be imposed in eight out of Waimairi’s nine ridings. However, home owners in the Papanui riding will face a small increase.

The Papanui rate will rise 0.75 per cent, it was decided at a special Waimairi District Council meeting last evening. Other riding .rate increases were cut to nil after councillors last week decided to pare a proposed average increase of 1.58 per cent.

Rates collected by the council on behalf of ad hoc bodies such as the Christchurch Drainage Board, the Christchurch Transport Board, and the North Canterbury Catchment Board have not been included in the nil increase. With a 5 per cent increase in council water rates, they will add a small sum, perhaps 1 per cent, to rate demands. Reductions were made

possible by a healthy balance of funds from last year and savings from the Government’s wage and price freeze. More than $lOO,OOO was cut from an administration account for riding work estimated at $4.1 million. The account has been reduced to $4,053,428, savings being made in a lowered contingency for staff salary increases and development reserves.

The sum allocated for administration expenditure in the 1983-84 financial year is still 9.25 per cent up on last year’s budget. More work is also planned on roading maintenance and construction, and water supply improvements. Over all the council’s total expenditure would rise 17.86 per cent this year, said the District Clerk, Mr J. Reid. The estimated total was $l3 million. The Papanui riding representative, Cr W. T. Rice,

said some cuts had been made in his riding account but it was decided to make a slight increase. The increase would enable more work to be done, including the provision of a development fund for upgrading Barnes Road. The chairman of the council’s finance and bylaw committee, Cr M. P. Hobby, said he was satisfied with the rate reductions. Much valuable work would be done, but in all but one riding rates would not increase. He said the small Papanui increase also “could have been kept in conformity with ridings, quite readily, had the riding member so wished.”

Expenditure in the Styx riding is estimated at $248,100. In Marshland it is $222,248; in Belfast, $188,768; Harewood, $591,233; Papanui, $390,629; Wairarapa, $490,749; Avonhead, $869,217; Fendalton, $693,663; and Middleton, $358,810.