Quick polls to decide on schemes

The fate of Rongotea's water and Himatangi Beach's sewerage schemes will be gauged by community polls instead of referendums, as a way of cutting council costs.

Manawatu District Council at first told each community that a referendum would be held to decide whether to go ahead with the proposed projects.

But due to the lengthy processes needed to hold one the council has opted to go with a quicker and more cost-effective option.

Council assets group manager Richard Kirby said a non-statutory poll had the same effect as a referendum, even though it did not involve statutory processes such as electoral roll development, public notices and an 82-day lead-in time period.

"Council wanted to get a reliable feedback from the communities on whether to go ahead with the schemes and believed this was the right way to do it," Mr Kirby said.

"Council is concentrating on landowners as the scheme costs are attached to the land. So it's the landowner who needs to have the say as they are the ones who have to pay should the scheme go ahead."

Each household will receive a voting paper, which will contain a question on whether the landowner supported the implementation of the scheme or not.

Council water manager Wayne Spencer said a referendum was never a set-in-stone decision-making process.

"We were using the word "referendum" loosely with the public.

The referendum had a lot of legal connotations and time constraints like the use of the electoral role and the three to four-month turnaround, but we [council] already have the details of all the ratepayers so we didn't need that process," Mr Spencer said.

He said the polls would be conducted by Christchurch-based Elections New Zealand.

"There are people in those communities who have accused the council of rigging things in the past and with the outside body undertaking the polls, it will ensure fairness."

Mr Kirby said the polls would be run at the same time to save money.

Rongotea's proposed town water system is set to cost each ratepayer around $1800 and Himatangi Beach's sewerage scheme will cost $7900 per household.

Both of the schemes have been subsidised by the Government by at least 50 per cent.

Notification of the polls were to be posted to individual land owners this week, with the voting papers due out in mid to late March.

Voters will have three weeks to respond and council is expected to make a decision regarding the scheme in April.

- © Fairfax NZ News