two biggest councils<\/a>, Napier City Council and Hastings District Council, shared three amalgamation options that they want feedback on from residents.<\/p>\nOption one is a single council combining all or most councils.<\/p>\n
Option two is a two-council model, which could see a northern council and a southern council, potentially divided by a landmark such as the T\u016btaekuri River (between Hastings and Napier).<\/p>\n
Both options would be unitary authorities, carrying out city\/district and regional council functions.<\/p>\n
Details are light on where the boundary could fall for option two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the region was split into two unitary authorities, the boundary would almost certainly have to change,\u201d Hastings Mayor Wendy Schollum said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not yet know what that would look like.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore any work is done on that, councils need to understand whether our communities have any appetite for it, particularly given it would cost more than having one unitary authority across the whole region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some people have been suggesting where a new boundary could sit, but my view is that it is simply too early to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
A third option is to ignore the request for amalgamation and let the Government decide if it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n
Napier Mayor Richard McGrath said it was important local voices were part of the conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are under significant time pressures at this stage of the conversation but there will be lots of opportunity over the next year to talk more with community,\u201d McGrath said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are asking right now is for people to take this seriously, get involved and share their views.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there was a lot councils did not know at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know if any option would reduce rates. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know if there\u2019d be cost savings, and if there are, when they\u2019d be realised. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what future governance arrangements might look like. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we don\u2019t know how local representation would work, or how responsibilities might be shared. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose are exactly the kinds of questions that need to be worked through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastings District Council, in a media release, stated no decisions had been made and there was no preferred option yet.<\/p>\n
Napier City Council\u2019s Simplifying Local Government survey is open until Friday, July 10 on sayitnapier.nz.<\/p>\n
Hastings District Council\u2019s Simplifying Local Government survey is open until Sunday, July 12 on myvoicemychoice.co.nz.<\/p>\n
A public amalgamation conversation evening is being held at 6pm on Monday, July 6 at the Napier War Memorial Centre. <\/p>\n
Hawke\u2019s Bay\u2019s past attempt at amalgamation<\/p>\n
In 2015, a referendum asked residents whether they wanted to merge the region\u2019s five councils into a single Hawke\u2019s Bay Council.<\/p>\n
Only Hastings was in favour, with 52% of returned votes supportive.<\/p>\n
Napier (84% against), Wairoa (88% against), and Central Hawke\u2019s Bay (58% against) opposed the merger.<\/p>\n
Debt was a major issue.<\/p>\n
The thought of ratepayers potentially paying off another district\u2019s debt proved unpopular.<\/p>\n
At the time, Hastings had about $55 million in external debt, while Napier had none.<\/p>\n
Today, Hastings District Council still has \u2013 by far \u2013 the most debt of any council in the region<\/a>.<\/p>\nAs of early May, Hastings\u2019 external debt is $493.7m, of which $32m is cash holdings (meaning it hasn\u2019t been spent).<\/p>\n
Napier City Council has $130m external debt (as of late March); Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Council, $117m (as of early February); Central Hawke\u2019s Bay District Council, $47m (as of December) and Wairoa District Council has $10m (as of December).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawke\u2019s Bay has five councils: Hastings, Wairoa and Central Hawke\u2019s Bay district councils, Napier City Council, and Hawke\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101475,95,1561,124,5205,7558,4101,24571,2082,8456,3273,305,1976,78,13840,111,43,139,7977,69,17159,29056,530,171,8229],"class_list":["post-502446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amalgamation","tag-and","tag-bay","tag-could","tag-council","tag-councils","tag-debate","tag-decide","tag-for","tag-fresh","tag-future","tag-have","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-like","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northern","tag-nz","tag-proposal","tag-proposed","tag-residents","tag-southern","tag-they"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502446","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=502446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}