Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

The 4.7 per cent increase in your residential rates to address stormwater issues has meant council can do two things simultaneously.

Our top priority is to finish modelling the current flood levels across the city's established suburbs.

Your funding has allowed us to also start delivering solutions for a priority catchment in Matua.

The solutions include purchasing properties on a natural flow path of flood water.

We're going to build an overland flow path through the properties, then sell surplus land to the neighbours. A handful of families are already grateful for a fair price to exit out of a dire situation.

However, Matua is made up of several catchments. Each catchment can cost between $10-$20 million to fix.

To keep council's costs low, we'll need your help to set expectations across the city.

For instance, can we allow some non-habitable sheds, such as garden sheds, to flood if that means we keep your costs low? We'll ask you these questions in April 2015, to set a fair level of service across the city.

These decisions can mean the difference between a $200m solution verses a $350m solution.

Retrofitting stormwater solutions in established suburbs is currently funded by $5m debt and $5m of rates levy. The initiative will take more than 20 years to complete across Tauranga at current funding levels.

We may have to set rules on private properties once we have completed each catchment, so we don't face the same $200m problem in 20 years' time.

Recycling thoughts

Another topic this week; what do think of the city's recycling?

Tauranga's current philosophy is to change peoples' behaviours by ensuring they're individually accountable for minimising their waste via a user pays service.

I was emailed asking if we can convert the old fire station on Rata St, Mount Maunganui, into a drop-off station to stop recyclable rubbish from going to landfill, particularly during summer.

Visitors from neighbouring cities, such as Hamilton and Auckland, are used to paying for their waste and recycling services through rates – every resident pays a similar amount, regardless of how much, or little, waste they produce.

It's inconvenient to drive to the Te Maunga recycling centre to drop of extra bottles, paper and plastics during the Christmas/New Year season. But if the council purchased a property in the Mount to provide a more convenient drop-off, it would require significant capital expenditure and on-going operational costs to ratepayers. It would also be a big shift away from our user pays philosophy.

Ratepayers would also need to fund the cartage of recycling to the Te Maunga site. Council would then need to provide similar sites across all suburbs in Tauranga to be fair to everyone. This would then undermine our philosophy of user pays, as people would cancel their recycling bins in favour of free local recycling drop-offs. I think our system is good for 11 months of the year. But I agree visitors during the Christmas/New Year period can get confused, causing unnecessary waste to landfill that could be recycled. It's with sadness I believe it's a problem we'll have to live with for the next three summers, because our resources are dedicated to more pressing issues.

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