Your council belongs to you, and it should deliver on your priorities.
Affordability
Times are tough, and Nelson households need certainty as they look to budget for the years ahead. That is why I have committed, alongside many other candidates, to not support any budget in the next council term that would increase rates by more than 5%.
This is intended as an upper limit, to draw a clear line in the sand. Every time a new council is elected, they come with new promises. Our current Long-Term Plan is fiscally responsible, and includes Rates increases of 4.7%, 4%, and 4.2%. History shows us that a new council will likely add to these increases, not reduce them.
If the new council wish to undertake new initiatives, we need to be willing to reduce activity elsewhere in the organisation or deliver our services more efficiently. Good governance is about navigating priorities, not just making promises.
Young People
We have to start thinking long-term. In the next thirty years, the percentage of our population aged over 65 is projected to increase from 20% to almost 27%.
I have no issue with young people leaving school and wanting to see the world - in fact I encourage it - but we need to look at what might attract them back to Nelson aged 25-35, rather than waiting until retirement to settle here.
To do this, we need to improve our housing stock, focus on economic development and affordability, and develop public services particularly for those who hope to settle and raise a family here.
Nelson Hospital redevelopment
The Nelson Hospital redevelopment is the single most important project taking place in Nelson in the near future. It will bring much-needed health improvements, as well as provide jobs and opportunities during its construction.
This is a central government project, but council has a critical role to play. By establishing a governance unit within council to oversee the project, we can ensure that our consenting, transport, and regulatory teams do not become a barrier to the project.
Similarly, we can ensure that the project is well integrated to the wider needs of our community, with considerations for parking, public transport, and active transport.
Transport
I have always been an advocate for taking a balanced approach to transport policy, removing barriers and ensuring that Nelsonians are free to use the method of transport that best suits their needs.
While it is nice to promise ‘new’ things, our priority over the next three years needs to be more focused on maintaining and refining our existing infrastructure.
This will mean a focus on maintaining roads, footpaths and cycleways, and tweaking our eBus service with earlier and later services, and adding bus stops to more convenient locations such as the Nelson Junction.
Housing
Nelson’s greatest asset in the housing space is how many high performing Community Housing Providers we have in our region. These include well-known entities such as the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust, Habitat for Humanity, Abbeyfield, and the Salvation Army.
This housing stock remains in our region in perpetuity, providing a social safety net that is more than just housing, but a local wraparound service supporting people with budgeting, home ownership and maintenance,
Nelson needs to attract as much of the governments $350m affordable housing fund as possible. The biggest barrier to new community housing is that providers need access to land to develop their funding application, but cannot access land due to lack of funding.
I will support the establishment of a capital fund, utilising council’s asset base and borrowing capacity, to support Community Housing Providers to access land and develop a business case.
Upon completion, the provider will repay council, freeing the fund up for a future project.
Play strategy
Nelson needs a coherent approach to the redevelopment of its play facilities, to ensure that a wide range of needs are met across our different parks and reserves.
We have plenty of small neighbourhood parks with a slide and a roctopus, but the facilities that local parents have been crying out for often go unmet - such as the request for a splash pad.
When funding is as tight as it is, we cannot afford to proceed on an ad-hoc basis. We need a comprehensive plan for how we wish to address our tired and aging play spaces across the region.
Smoke/vape free outdoor policy
Nelson is the only region in the entire South Island without a smoke/vape free outdoor policy. We have been asked to step-up, and I expect our council to answer.
A policy would identify smokefree zones throughout the region, such as at local parks, community spaces, and transport hubs.
I have been working with the smokefree coalition and will work to advance a policy in the next term of council.
Attracting central government funding
An enormous amount of council funding comes from central government. Take for example our transport funding, of which a huge proportion attracts a 51% NZTA subsidy, provided it aligns with their objectives and priorities.
Our community has its own priorities that don’t always align with the left-right swing of Wellington politics. However, somewhere in that political pendulum our priorities are picked up, whether this year it is cycleway funding, or next year road upgrades.
We need to take a long-term view to our projects, and prioritise pressing ‘go’ on the ones that attract central government funding with them. We often fool ourselves into thinking every project is urgent, but if we attempt to fully fund everything ourselves, we achieve so much less for Nelson.
Localised planning
Our biggest blunder in the previous term of council was Plan Change 29. While the need remains for more enabling planning rules enabling development and intensification, our council’s delivery of Plan Change 29 fell short of community expectations.
We are now faced with a twin challenge of requiring planning for 30 years of housing growth under new ministerial direction and also supporting our community to adapt in the face of ever-increasing natural disasters and weather events.
Council should integrate its adaptation planning alongside planning for housing growth and development through a robust neighbourhood planning process, considering the required facilities, infrastructure and design of our neighbourhoods into the future.
A customer focus
Council needs to shake it’s ‘bureaucracy mindset’ and begin to see itself for what it is, a provider of services to residents and ratepayers. You - the public - are customers of council, and our organisation needs to put it’s customers first in every interaction.
Council is currently undergoing a process of transformation called ‘shaping our future’ which seeks to drastically improve the customer journey. This needs support from both a governance and management level.
I will be supporting this process with necessary investment to improve council systems and processes to ensure that council services are easy to accessible, affordable, and efficient.