West Coast pensioner challenges ‘horrendous’ council rates

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Lois Williams:

A Hokitika pensioner is staging a one-woman rate strike in protest at the amount she is being asked to pay to the West Coast Regional Council.

Liz Whiteside, 71, has written to all seven regional councillors and chief executive Darryl Lew, taking them to task over soaring rate bills.

Whiteside said she stopped paying her WCRC rates three years ago when they went up 30%.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves for giving ratepayers a horrendous increase,” she wrote.

This year’s 27% average increase would make the regional rates even less affordable for superannuitants, she said.

“I’m an elderly pensioner nearing the end of my life who has worked hard despite a permanent disability and I don’t agree with throwing money away on a service I am not receiving."

Superannuitants living alone are paid about $1000 a fortnight.

Whiteside said she was already paying $125 a fortnight for Grey District rates, which had risen 18 per cent this year.

“This alone takes a big chunk out of my fortnightly superannuation. But I don’t begrudge paying this due to receiving services from the District Council such as water and sewerage."

The Regional Council, on the other hand, was not providing any services she considered useful or relevant to her property, she said.

A floodwall being built by the council along the Hokitika River, to future proof the area, was in part unnecessary, Whiteside claimed.

“I have lived in my property for 44 years and the highest I’ve seen the river in flood was the water entering the gravel pit … it’s never come over the top.”

The river would have to rise another four metres to endanger surrounding homes, Whiteside claims.

The council has referred her unpaid rates to debt collection and she was receiving letters demanding payment, Whiteside said.

But she was refusing to open the envelope.

“I’m in no doubt the amount showing is now $1194.12 … money I don’t have and can’t pay.”

She had offered to drip-feed the council $20 a fortnight, for three years, which was all she could afford, she said.

Whiteside said she would fiercely resist any attempt by the council to sell her property to recover the debt.

“I will not be forced out of my own home, ever.”

Regional Council chairperson Peter Haddock said he had rung Whiteside after hearing about her concerns.

“We don’t want to put people out of their homes - we have a hardship policy and if they can’t afford their rates, they need to get in touch with our rates team and we can work out a payment plan they can afford."

He did not expect Whiteside would see a 27% increase on her rates bill, because she was not in a special rating district where landowners were paying for flood protection work.

“I would say she’s probably going to have about a 15 percent increase, and I’ve put her in touch with the right person at the council to help her out with a payment plan she can afford."

Councillor Allan Birchfield, who raised the pensioner’s rates complaint with LDR, said many West Coast superannuitants would be in the same position.

“People are doing it bloody hard out there, and the old people especially – they can’t afford these rates, and they can’t see what they’re getting for their money.”

The council had turned into a bloated monster, with more than 80 staff, Birchfield said.

“A lot of those people would be on more than $100,000 - that’s where all the money’s going,” Birchfield said.

Haddock said the council had been forced to use contractors in recent years, but under a new chief executive they had been able to recruit staff to fill long-standing vacancies.

The regional council has had to borrow and rate to cover the multi-million dollar cost of the coast’s new Te Tai o Poutini District Plan – a job imposed on it by the Local Government Commission.

It also borrows to cover the cost of river works and flood protection schemes, but landowners in special rating districts up and down the coast repay the loans over time through additional rates.