Development Contributions Policy
What we're proposing
Development Contributions (DCs) are how we recover the cost of extensions to our infrastructure when needed because of new developments such as subdivisions. DCs are paid by the developers who create this demand.
Our towns are growing, and are forecast to continue to grow, mostly in urban areas. This growth is great for building thriving communities and it increases the number of ratepayers to split the total rates bill across, but that growth also requires extensions to our infrastructure – like roads, pipes etc. We look to recover the cost of these extensions to our infrastructure from the developers who create this demand, through charging development contributions (DCs). The assets that the DCs fund will cater for growth over a long period of time, so the costs of the growth related expenditure are recovered over 25 years, ensuring that each generation of development ‘pays its own way’.
One of the key challenges in this space is ensuring that we are investing in the infrastructure at the right time – not burdening our ratepayers with the costs too early, and not leaving it too long, resulting in a poor service. With affordability top of mind in this plan, we’ve had to pick our projects carefully. We’re giving top priority to the projects we MUST do (compliance projects), followed by the growth-related projects. We have spread these out or staged projects where we can to keep costs as low as possible.
The draft budget includes $51.5 million for growth related projects proposed over the next 10 years. 38% of the cost of these projects is budgeted to be recovered from DCs over this same 10 year period, with 100% recovered over a 25 year period.
