Time running out for Long Term Plan submissions

Monday (May 4) is the last day for submissions on the ORC Long Term Plan.

ORC chairman Stephen Woodhead said the Long Term Plan outlines council’s work programme for the next decade and explains how it intends to fund its activities.

The council plans to expand its work programmes by increasing monitoring and compliance activity to action new rules in the Otago Water Plan. These rules aim to bring about improved water quality where it is poor or maintain good water quality.

Alongside this, in the first year of the plan, a 5.2 percent increase in the general rate is proposed along with the introduction of two new targeted rates.

One of the proposed new targeted rates will help fund additional focused water quality monitoring and new science and technology work. The other will fund ORC’s annual programme of monitoring dairy farms to ensure these landholders are compliant with our permitted activity rules.

Hearings on the plan, at which submitters will be able to speak, are scheduled for the week beginning May 11.

The consultative process is the forerunner to the council’s adoption of the LTP on June 24, after submissions have been considered.

Mr Woodhead said the consultative process offered ratepayers and residents a chance to have their say about the direction of the work outlined in the plan, based around four key themes: water, biodiversity, land protection, and air.

Anyone can make a submission on the plan, which they can do online, by post, or via email, he said.

For more information please contact

Stephen Woodhead
Chairman
ORC
Ph 027 280 1635