Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

This week we've finalised next year's budget after considering feedback from 785 people and organisations.

We started with the CBD. We felt the current plan for the waterfront, plus the request to increase marketing for the CBD, is a fragmented approach that would not address the key barriers to a thriving CBD.

Part of the Phoenix carpark in the Mount will be turned into an urban amenity for locals and tourists to enjoy. It will be funded by development contributions. We'll find alternative locations for the few car parks lost.

We agreed to gift the Durham Street carpark property to the university, subject to conditions to safeguard our investment. We also agreed to kick start the marine prescient underneath the harbour bridge. Community and major events also got a $380,000 boost. These initiates aim to bring more money and vitality into Tauranga, as well as bring our communities together. We agreed not to proceed with inflation adjustments (2 per cent) for most of the organisations we provide general rate funding towards (Creative Tauranga, Sport Bay of Plenty, and Tauranga Art Gallery). We agreed to fund the inflation adjustments for most of the commercial rate funded organisations (Export BOP, Priority One, Tourism BOP).

We halved the increase in mobile shop fees (now $545) and we'll iron out the creases in the rules before summer.

The targeted rate for the Papamoa commercial centre will proceed, which will follow a similar model to Mount, Greerton, and Tauranga mainstreets.

The opening hours for swimming pools will remain the same, but entry fees will increase.

With only one submission against, we allocated $50,000 to trial the community match fund. We'll see whether communities are willing to join together to support projects in their local area.

Our sports grounds are facing the squeeze as we sweat our assets. So we're improving some facilities, such as lighting and parking, at Blake Park, Fergusson Park, Waipuna Park, Greerton Reserve, and Gordon Spratt Reserve.

The Greerton library is fully budgeted after waiting more than 20 years.

The mobile library will continue, but we need to work with the ministry of education as I believe we're picking up their slack for not getting books into Tauranga's poorest schools. We're also going ahead with the 4.7 per cent stormwater levy. Instead of putting it into a reserve, we've found some quick wins in Matua that will need to happen regardless of how we proceed.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 027 6989 548, or contact me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice.