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More From The TDC Twilight Zone

The last opportunity to pass a Special Housing Accord (SHA) development in Tasman (before the Government change the rules) was turned down recently. Unfortunately, this was the only SHA where the developer was making some attempt to provide affordable housing.

The developer, the owner of a building company, was having trouble attracting staff because of the high cost of housing. A problem many other businesses in Tasman are facing. This started him on a journey of coming up with a development strategy to address the problem. He had a list of covenants to ensure that the houses would be cheaper and get into the hands of the right people. Covenants like no land sold to housing development companies but only to owner occupiers, a maximum size house rather than a minimum, not for resale for at least 3 years.

The land was about three hectares on the main road of hope – surrounded by houses. Services are already supplied to the gate with capacity for the proposed development.

It sounds like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, brains are not a prerequisite of councillors and sometimes I think that those who turn up definitely fit in the no-brainer category. This day was one of those days as the application was turned down for submission to the crown.

FOR

McNamara

Turley

King

Sangster

Brown

 

ABSENT Ogilvie, Hawkes

AGAINST

Kempthorne

Mailing

Tuffnell

Wensley

Greening

Canton

Bryant

Arguments against the proposal varied from “it was sprung on us, we didn’t have time to properly consider it” to “it is rural one land and we must protect it.” These sound like valid arguments except for the fact that earlier in our term we were presented with and passed about a dozen SHA applications in one meeting with literally thousands of pages of accompanying literature. We had no time to digest them. The recent applicant, however, had emailed councillors months prior canvassing the idea and asking for our thoughts on the development. Obviously, some councillors don’t read emails.

This development lies in land currently zoned rural, however, it is too small to be profitable for most agricultural applications. It is highly likely there would be an influx of complaints to council from their neighbours if they decided to farm it in a manner that might be profitable: too much noise, we are getting spray drift, or there is too much dust.

One Councillor suggested afterwards that they might put glass houses on their land to make it more profitable. A person could put glass houses on the Richmond mall carpark – prime horticulture land is not required for that.

Incidentally, the majority of those councillors who voted against this proposal were the ones that voted in favour of developing vast tracts of rural zoned land in lower Queen Street. Land that was prime horticulture land. Land that is located directly across the road from the region’s heavy industry. Land that we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars providing infrastructure to.

Where were the concerns of those Councillors that day?

In the Council meeting on Thursday 9.05.19, we began to see the impact of over-committing our budget on the Waimea Dam. The Engineering department are coming to us with a work program that is about 30% under delivered on. Projects that they are currently trying to complete have contractor quotes greatly in excess of the budgets allocated.

Previously, when faced with a budget deficit staff come to the Council table and ask for more money. But now they must come to us with projects that they wish to drop or delay to cross allocate the funding because the Council is projected to hit the $200 million debt cap ceiling.

It is bad enough that people who have been waiting for years to get infrastructure upgrades, or to get infrastructure supplied, are now finding that the wait is not over. However, it is particularly irksome when three weeks prior the Mayor was visiting various communities telling them that we do not have to consult on the Annual Plan this year because we are not deviating significantly from the Long-Term Plan. He also outlined the program of works that the area would be getting in the current financial year.

It is unlikely that events developed so quickly in the three weeks between our Annual Plan presentations and the Full Council meeting where we received the list of projects being canned that it was a surprise to staff.

But that did not stop staff providing a list of works to be done (that were not going to be done) for presentation to the ratepayers in our district meetings. Therefore, the feedback that we went out to seek was irrelevant because it was not based on the facts. Money well spent.

Twelve months ago the Mayor was doing the same Annual Plan tour suggesting that there would be two consultations on the dam, at the time knowing full well that we would only have time for one consultation.

 Why do we present to our community when we cannot present the current reality?

This kind of behaviour must stop.

It is no wonder our ratepayers do not trust a word that we say. These are the kind of examples that provoke me to campaign for a more accountable Council.

McKee Memorial Reserve Reopens

The McKee Memorial Reserve opens the gate to campers again this Friday October 19th.  It has taken a mammoth effort after the effects of ex-Tropical Cyclone Fehi in February this year to get it back to a habitable state. Storms of this magnitude have not ravished the Reserve since 1954-55 when similar events killed many of the shrubs and trees.

Council staff and contractors alongside of Friends of the Reserve have had to move tones of logs and rubble thrown up by the sea. They have created new drainage pathways and upgraded the sewerage reticulation. Trees killed by the salt-water inundation have been removed and the children’s playground has been put back together.

McKee Memorial Reserve with Fred McKee and Dean McNamara

It was an honour to be able to do a final walk around and inspection ahead of the opening with Fred McKee whose family donated much of the land that makes up the reserve the today. It is an area rich in history from the Maori that frequented the coastline in pre-European times, to the horse drawn cable car that was used by early European settlers to transport goods from the beach up the bluffs.

The McKee Reserve is the only area of significant coastal native bush left between the Able Tasman National Park and Nelson and is home to an array of native birds. The bird life has recovered significantly with the efforts put in by long serving caretaker Ken Todd trapping pests in the area.

Chatting with the McKee campground manager
Ken Todd, Fred McKee, Dean McNamara

While Ken has not been at the reserve quite as long as the giant Lancewood tree (150 – 200 years old) he and his partner Jan Wellington have been the resident caretakers for almost 22 years. Waking up to a beachfront view like they have it is easy to see why they have not been keen to relinquish their job. However, they have decided it is time to pack up and see more of the world, and we thank them for the many years of hard work and wish them well for the future.

This does mean that Tasman District Council are currently advertising for a new caretaker. If you are at all interested I would get a CV in quick because this is one job that won’t need to be advertised twice!

It is fantastic to see that the Council has made the effort to reopen the McKee Memorial Reserve as a camping ground in response to pleas from the community. The budget price camp ground ($6 a night) has been a favourite for many locals with many having generational ties to their favourite spot!

According to Ken the patronage is about 60/40 split between locals and guests from further afield. Even young foreign tourists return home and send their parents back to Ruby Bay to stay at McKee. Ken assures me that when the parents show up and ask him if he remembers their children who stayed some years earlier he always responds “yes of course, they looked a lot like you … only younger!” Not a bad memory given that Ken collects $130,000 worth of $6 fees a year!

If you are planning to stay at the McKee Memorial Reserve this summer it will pay to book in early as the camp site is still a work in progress and the storm damage has reduced the number of sites available. Down from the previous 250 people a night to 150 for the opening, staff will be monitoring the reserve to see what capacity can be comfortably accommodated in the future.

Download a copy of the Fred McKee brochure and learn more fascinating facts about the reserve

13 Reasons Why-The Waimea Dam

Waimea Irrigators Ltd (WIL) have announced a new funding model for their share of the dam. The institutional investor that rode in on a white horse the day after the Council voted the Waimea Dam funding and governance model down has been side-lined.

[redacted] the institutional investor, whom we know not the identity of,wanted to de-risk his investment by shifting the risk of his shares onto theirrigators. The same irrigators who have shifted large portions of their riskonto the general rate-payer and urban water user. When the irrigators saw thatrisk was being shifted to them in similar fashion they started to squeal like a stuck pig and said it wasn’t fair.

Instead of this unfair arrangement they said they would like to fund the extra shares themselves, so [redacted] passed the hat around, and within a few days they had come up with an extra $11 million dollars from 13irrigators (and possibly one non-irrigating shareholder).

These are the same irrigators, who when we were talking about an $83 million-dollar dam said they were “at their limit” of payment and wanted Council (the urban water ratepayer) to buy more shares then the amount of shares we already had signed up for to more than satisfy our 100-year demand.

These are the same irrigators who were “at their limit” on the $83 million-dollar dam and could not possibly be tied to any dam overrun expenses, thus shifting 100% of dam overrun risk on to the general ratepayer and urban water user.

These are the same irrigators who were “at their limit” when the environmental flow components of the dam were being divvied out [these figures are a fabrication designed to shift cost from irrigators that should fall on the users for using the river as a conduit to run their water from the dam to their pumps like with all the plan B options]. The end result being that the general rate-payer had to pick up these costs (now a total of 52% of running costs) because “we all have to get there together or we don’t get there at all.”

These are the same irrigators who were “at their limit” on an $83 million-dollar project who managed to find “their share” of the increase in the dam budget when the project became a $102 million-dollar project – within a matter of days.

And now we see that within a matter of days 13 irrigators (plus possibly one other) are able to put their hand in their pocket to find another $11 million dollars. This would be in line with the comments by WIL chairman Murray King who said if the dam doesn’t go ahead they would spend more than four times their dam contribution to put in their own water supplies. 

Dam under hostage

The 13 reasons why this dam is being built have been revealed, and they will, once the dam is built, control the water on the Waimea Plains as they have a monopoly on water right allocations. They will set the price of any water shares sold and they will determine if the applicant is a worthy recipient of said shares.

[I am told this statement is factually incorrect. Council controls water right allocations through the TRMP, what the investment vehicle will partly control is the ability to affiliate and therefore get a more secure water supply.]

[redacted] This despite the fact that the general rate-payer and urban water user will be subsidising irrigators on the Waimea Plains for at least the next 100 years anyway.

On top of that we have still ended up with a scenario where the Council does not have a buffer zone between when irrigators are required to experience water restrictions and when the Council reticulation is required to experience water restrictions. I have heard all the explanations from staff how with the dam this won’t be an issue for 100 years. I have also heard how the Government could change what we currently consider to be an acceptable minimum flow in the river at the drop of a hat. I am also waiting to see that the dam works as described as we head into changing climate conditions. [redacted]

Dam Decisions

Congratulations to the Waimea Irrigators who have secured a subsidized water supply for the next 100 years (assuming the dam can be built, functions as intended, and lasts for 100 years). I hope the smaller shareholders in WIL are informed as to what risks they carry. Given that 2000 shares have been sold to investors only 3000 shares are target rateable in the event council comes knocking for a share of any overruns. I suspect that some of the 3000 shares are held by people with an exit strategy also, although councillors have no idea who the shareholders (or the investors) are.

Businesses on the reticulated supply will also be celebrating. However, I hope they read the fine print of this dam that they wanted so badly. I also thought a dam was a good solution, but not THIS dam. If the costs start to overrun then water on the reticulated supply is going to be eye wateringly expensive given that we are starting from a position of the most expensive urban supply in the country. One can imagine in this scenario that Nelson residents being supplied from Tasman will insist that Nelson City Council supplies them water, and in that scenario, there will be another million dollars a year (current prices) that will fall back on Tasman residents and businesses.

Waimea Dam good deal

Looking ahead (given that I have been accused of near sightedness among other things) we are destined for a similar problem that exists with the current over-allocation model. Urban supply should always have been protected as allocations were made on the plains. This did not happen and the council has repeated exactly the same mistake with the new dam supply model.

Given that the urban water user and businesses are paying for gold-plated shares in the dam (because it is not an irrigator subsidy) we should have a gold-plated supply guarantee. This would look something like a protected portion of the reservoir that can only be released to cover the urban supply. The deal that we have got is a deal where everyone is on the same restrictions.

During the summer the irrigators will be pumping full allocations and the tap on the dam will be opened to meet the demand. When the dam gets down to 20% capacity water restrictions will kick in across the board (irrigators, urban, and commercial). Everyone will end up on cease take at the same time just as occurs now. This will not affect the bulk of irrigators as they need the supply early in the summer before their fruit and crops are harvested. The most likely irrigators to be affected by late summer restrictions are market gardeners and dairy farmers extending their season.

However, the industrial users such as fruit processors, and the meat works will be hitting peak season as restrictions apply. Other industries also spoke about how they cannot afford any restrictions, such as the glue plant, cool stores, and the mall etc. Given the exceedingly high price our industries are paying for their “water security” I hope they are happy with the deal this dam offers for the next 100 years.

Since I am so nearsighted, my objection that there is no mention in the Terms Sheets of who pays for the decommissioning of the dam is obviously redundant also. But what do we care, we won’t be around in 100 years, right? Let’s hope this dam doesn’t need decommissioning before then.

In the short term I only have to worry about the degraded state of the river, a responsibility in our consents and under The National Policy Statement For Fresh Water (that doesn’t state we have to build dams contrary to what dam supporters keep telling me). The corners being cut in dam construction by flooding a huge quantity of mulched wood and stumps left in situ will be challenging to mitigate the effects of. It is highly likely that the running costs will blow out accordingly as we try and mitigate these effects – further adding to the burden on water users.

Of course, my concerns are only based on a few vocal nay-sayers and I should only be taking the advice of staff and their experts.

No doubt time will tell who are the heroes and who was the voice of reason. Whether dam advocates will be labelled as saviours of the district or whether the nay-sayers will be able to say “I told you so.”  But one thing is for sure, if this dam doesn’t deliver as promised, it won’t be the wealthy that will be left homeless.

pool celebration
Cheers

Tasman District Council Remains Economical – With The Truth

This Council is always looking for ways to save. We have found that we can stockpile the truth by only using it sparingly.

For instance, in the agenda for Tuesday 28th August 2018 the council staff inform me:

Funding and Finance – Waimea Community Dam
The Nature of Public Investments

18.10 Concerns have been raised in the past about the Council’s investment in the proposed Waimea Dam being a subsidy to irrigators. What is proposed is not that but is an increased Council contribution to get a project over the line. The Council should be motivated to do that (within limits) because the do nothing and alternative augmentation options cost the community more and/or deliver less value.

18.11 Public capital investment in government-owned assets creates the opportunity for private investment and productivity – that is why councils and central governments do it. The effect of public capital investment on economic growth is hotly debated. While analysts debate the magnitude, the evidence is that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between infrastructure investment and economic performance.

18.12 In the case of this project the investment opportunities are for the irrigators and others to take. Some may argue that there is an element of exclusivity here in that ‘affiliation’ and a water supply agreement is required to gain access to the benefits. In other words, access is available for a fee.

18.13 Other public investments in assets such as roads, airports, ports, transit systems, and even community facilities create investment opportunities for and ‘subsidise’ someone. Our consenting and regulatory work enables developers and others to profit also. While some may be genuine public good and access is ‘free’ there are many other examples where a fee is needed to particulate.

It is such a relief to know that this dam funding model is not a subsidy to irrigators – I was obviously mistaken when I highlighted the ways that this project has gone from an extractor/user pays model to a huge subsidy of irrigators.

It turns out that the urban water user and general ratepayer (staff use the term “Council”) is making an increased contribution to get the project over the line. This increased contribution reduces the amount that the irrigators are paying for their shares, and increases the cost of our shares as the percentage of water allocation remains the same. Which is obviously a different model to the irrigators getting a subsidy.

Here was I thinking that a subsidy is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of simple maths. Either you are paying the same rate as everyone else for your shares, or you are getting discounted shares at someone else’s expense (a subsidy by any other name).

It is interesting to note also that other public investments in assets “subsidise” someone. It appears if you use “air quotes” when talking about something, like a subsidy for instance, it is somehow not an actual subsidy but instead it is a “subsidy.” This clarification is important because once upon a time I would have said staff are lying but now I understand that they are just “lying” (which is not telling real lies, just the other kind of lies).

“Lying” appears to be a common trait amongst those ardent supporters of the dam. We have seen that irrigators are often found to be “lying,” such as Juliane Raine who also claimed there was not a subsidy of irrigators, and Murray King was picked up by Newsroom reporters as using truth in an economical fashion

King bristles at suggestions the extra irrigation might pollute the very waterways it’s trying to save. “This area is already heavily irrigated. And when people say that it’s going to lead to more nitrates and things it’s just not true.” (However, he adds the disingenuous line that “farmers are not in the business of wasting resources”, which, if true, would mean councils wouldn’t have to impose rules to fence off waterways or limit farm runoff.)

And again:

Another points-scoring argument comes from Waimea Irrigators’ King: “The more you delay the project, the more it costs.” But then he adds that delaying have often been “instigated by the naysayers”, when it appears the project’s biggest hurdle has been funding.

However, it is not just irrigators that stoop to using “lies” to get their point across with more conviction. Independent CWS Advisory Group (who are independently ardent advocates of the dam) representative Morgan Williams has offered to sell his reputation down the toilet for free (likely a candidate for a Tui advert I suspect). I am sure most Tasman residents heard the radio adverts and received a glossy flier in their letterbox paid for by ….  (good point, who is funding Mr independent Williams and friends?).

He claims that without a dam there will be serious water cuts, and the Waimea River will get sicker. Well, which is it Morgan? Is the river going to dry up or are we going to have water cuts?

The dam is the only option, using natural gravel “pipes” to feed the land and fill our urban water supply. Note the use of air quotes around “pipes” because they are not real pipes – in fact they are not pipes at all. The truth is that we are using the river, and urban water user and general ratepayer is “subsidising” (staff tell me it is not real) the irrigators use of the river “pipes” under some fictitious concept called environmental flow costs.

The “Who Pays? Donut chart would have you believe that the ratepayer is picking up hardly any of the bill. In running costs alone you are paying 51% (which is conservatively around $81,100,000, over 100 years) never mind actual contributions, and underwrites of irrigator loans etc.

There are many more economies of truth in the flier such as alternatives that won’t work, the dam is the most affordable option, the project has region wide benefit, etc etc. But I will highlight just one more.

Votes YES for the Waimea Dam

Morgan Williams, ardent supporter of all things truthful would have us believe that the Waimea Community Dam has had 18 years of YES votes at “every stage” of the Community Dam. Very conveniently, he entirely overlooks the 11th December 2014 vote that was a NOT YES, back when the Council consulted on a Council owned and funded dam.

Tasman District Council Minutes of Full Council – 11 December 2014 Minutes

That the Full Council

  1. receives the Proposed Waimea Community Dam – Funding and Governance Options report RCN14-12-01; and
  2. agrees not to include either option 1 or option 2 of the funding proposals from the Funding and Governance Statement of Proposal consulted on in October/November 2014 in the Long Term Plan 2015-2025; and
  3. Funding and Governance Statement of Proposal consulted on in October/November 2014 in the Long Term Plan 2015-2025; and
  4. requests that staff include $25 million in the Long Term Plan 2015-2025 Consultation Document for a water augmentation scheme being Council’s share of the environmental flows and provision for the current and future urban water needs for the Waimea basin; and
  5. notes that a commitment to funding a water augmentation scheme in the Long Term Plan 2015-2025 will be conditional on project scope (including an independent review of alternative options for urban supply encompassing ecologically sustainable water management practices, as agreed by Council) and external funding being agreed; and
  6. establishes a Council Controlled Organisation for the objectives set out in s59 of the Local Government Act 2002 and for the purpose of enabling external funding to be obtained, enabling the statutory purposes exercisable on behalf of the Council to be accessed, and delivering cost effective local infrastructure; and
  7. notes that further consultation and engagement with the public on a water augmentation scheme will be undertaken, including on a new proposal in the Long Term Plan 2015-2025 Consultation Document; and
  8. notes that the decision to proceed or not proceed with the Waimea Community Dam cannot be made until further information is available; and requests that staff report back on the work programme to implement these resolutions; and
  9. instructs staff to write back to all submitters with information on the Council’s decisions contained within this report and informing them on the next consultation steps; and
  10. requests that staff report back to Council on the proposed constitution and board make up of the Council Controlled Organisation; and
  11. requests that staff report back to Council on the opportunities available for the promotion of water conservation; and
  12. promotion of water conservation; and requests that staff report back to Council on options to attribute the $25M funding for urban water needs and environmental flows and to model these funding options on a number of sample properties; and
  13. advocates, in seeking any external funding for direct beneficiaries, a proportional user-pays model whereby contributions are relative to consumption or future consumption; and
  14. ensures that the Long Term Plan 2015-2025 Consultation Document contains information on alternative options to the proposed Waimea Community Dam.

Note that at this juncture we were to advocate a proportional user-pays model. Which is more or less what was presented to me when I was first asked to vote on proceeding with the dam. Then we had to NOT “subsidise” the irrigators into the current funding model to get the version we have now. A model that some describe as a wealth transfer of significant magnitude.

Waimea dam funding pie chart

The TDC staff pie chart is slightly more reflective of the current funding model, although, it also neglects to shade the $35million ratepayer underwrite of the CIIL loan in at the very least a hatched colour.

Let us return for a moment to the “lies” told by dam advocates such as Mayor Kempthorne and senior council staff. This old, often repeated, chestnut is one of my favourite:

Environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said “In the worst-case scenario, when there are cease-take directions, Tasman will face its own ‘Cape Town’ situation and people will collect water from tankers.“

Surely this is a fact? Well, it is certainly a possible outcome … if the Council elects NOT to build the dam … AND there is a serious drought … Ohh and a change of council policy (something they neglect to mention – economical with the truth).  The current agenda mentions on at least two occasions that council policy is:

4.16 For many years, Council has accepted that ‘doing nothing’ is not an option when it comes to addressing the water allocation and water quality issues in the Waimea River catchment.

4.35 As noted above, “doing nothing” is not an option when it comes to addressing water allocation and water quality issues in the Waimea River catchment or for securing the urban water supply against droughts and demands from growth.

And yet we proceed to make media statements that the worst-case scenario if the dam doesn’t go ahead is a do nothing option.

There are many other economical uses of the truth in the agenda, however, it is late and tomorrow will likely be a big day as we vote on the dam. As we are told that a $26 million change in the dam funding model is not worth consulting the ratepayers on (even if it means pushing out $20m worth of budgeted projects) I will just leave you with the question I have asked before:

If this dam is so good why are we constantly “lying” to sell it?

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