Under the new schedule, a $20 daily fee would be charged for people outside the districts for the Whakat\u0101ne Harbour boat ramp and a $10 fee for Thornton and \u014chiwa boat ramps.<\/p>\n
As well as the daily fee for people living outside the district and who didn\u2019t pay rates in the district, a one-off administrative fee of $20 for district residents to use the boat ramp is being proposed.<\/p>\n
During a month-long public consultation, the council received 53 submissions: 27 were opposed to a boat ramp fee, 25 agreed with it and one was unsure.<\/p>\n
Three of the submitters who wanted the boat ramp to be free addressed the council in person.<\/p>\n
Graham Walker said he would not use the boat ramp if he was going to be charged, even if it cost him more to go further afield.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to Opape or I\u2019m going to Waihau Bay … because I believe that amenity should be free.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has refused to use Whitianga boat ramp since the council introduced a fee there, despite saying he enjoys the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cFishermen are pretty prickly people. If they see something that they don\u2019t believe in, in principle, they will kick up and head the other direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barry Cutfield agreed that a fee would deter guests to the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scheme is cumbersome, repressive, regressive and laden with overheads. For visitors, the hassle of the transaction is possibly more significant than the sum.\u201d<\/p>\n
He proposed promoting the district, using \u201czero fees and zero hassle\u201d as a tool to attract boaties. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey spend a bob in our businesses while they\u2019re here. We should recognise the economic benefits of that spend.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Matthews said the user-pays approach to the boat ramp would leave a \u201csour taste\u201d in the mouths of visitors.<\/p>\n
He listed several council services in the district he did not use but contributed to through his rates, such as libraries, parks and playgrounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty dollars might not be very much, but we all know that this is the thin end of the wedge … Next thing we could be paying $100. <\/p>\n
Councillor Wilson James said boat ramp users shouldn\u2019t be singled out for a user-pays model that was being applied inconsistently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we charge for the boat ramp we should also charge for parking, and I certainly don\u2019t support that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Lesley Immink also opposed a fee at this stage, wanting to promote Whakat\u0101ne as a no-fees place for recreational boaties.<\/p>\n
Finance general manager Paul Davidson said that though harbour leases brought in around $2.6 million in income for the Harbour Operational Fund, operating costs were trending toward a deficit for the past three years.<\/p>\n
It was $172,000 in deficit at the end of the past financial year.<\/p>\n
Cleaning and keeping the boat ramp free of debris costs around $140,000 annually, depending on weather conditions.<\/p>\n
Mayor Tanczos said he supported the fee, otherwise rates would need to be raised further to cover the deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think about the cost of buying a boat, filling your 4WD up with diesel, towing it from out of town, filling it up with ice and bait … the cost that we\u2019re talking about is nothing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He accepted some boaties might avoid Whakat\u0101ne, on principal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people like that, but that\u2019s not most people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said if the council didn\u2019t charge for boat ramps, they should not charge for use of sports grounds or community halls either.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I think about the people who need to be subsidised in our community, I think about the kids playing sport. If we were going to be putting the rates up, that\u2019s who I would put them up for.\u201d<\/p>\n
How boat ramp fees will work<\/p>\n
Many of the 27 submitters opposed to boat ramp fees were under the impression that the $20 fee for local residents would be charged annually.<\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne District Council\u2019s mayor and councillors were assured by staff that this was a one-off payment.<\/p>\n
It would cover the council\u2019s administrative costs of registering the vehicles they used to tow their boats as belonging to residents.<\/p>\n
Many were also concerned that the cost of policing the system would be greater than any income it would generate or that the income would be minimal.<\/p>\n
Ports and harbours team leader Mark Read assured councillors there would be no cost to the council to introduce the fee. <\/p>\n
An independent supplier would collect the fee, retaining 15% of the revenue to run the programme.<\/p>\n
Payments could be made online through using a QR code link and they would monitor who was using the boat ramp by installing a licence plate recognition camera on the site.<\/p>\n
Once set up on the system, local users could have up to two vehicles registered on it, which they could update for no charge whenever they wished.<\/p>\n
Anyone using the boat ramp without paying a fee would receive a notice that they had breached the boat ramp\u2019s terms of use.<\/p>\n
This system was already being used successfully in Coromandel. The system would also be able to provide data to the council on numbers of boats using the boat ramp.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the new schedule, a $20 daily fee would be charged for people outside the districts for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2327,80138,32294,117,111,43,139,69,1523,27217,241295,109209,61,2240],"class_list":["post-479608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2327","tag-boaties","tag-charge","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-ramp","tag-shun","tag-threaten","tag-to","tag-whakatne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}