For your information

The future of Waiora House

We’re currently looking at whether or not to replace the main building of Waiora House.

THE ISSUE IN BRIEF

Before it was demolished with some urgency following the discovery of friable asbestos and fire damage in 2019, the former Taupō maternity hospital on the corner of Spa Road and Kaimanawa Street, was the home of a wide range of social service agencies.

The Council-owned building was managed by a trust, funded through a community grant, and used for offices, workspaces, clinics, meeting rooms and storage facilities.

The tenants were moved to several different alternative location around the CBD and the council has been paying the lease costs since the demolition.

The Council recognises there are many benefits of having our social service agencies together to create a ‘one stop’ approach and prior to COVID-19 had formally resolved to replace the building.

It is our intention to construct a new main building. We aren’t at the stage yet where we have detailed costs for this project, but expect it to cost approximately $5.9 million, and we would like to know your thoughts around whether we should construct a new main building.

Further community engagement will be undertaken at some future point.

Three waters reform

In July 2020, the Government launched the Three Waters Reform Programme - a three-year programme to reform local government three waters (wastewater, stormwater and drinking water) service delivery arrangements.

The Government’s starting intention is to reform local government’s three waters services into a small number of multi-regional entities with a bottom line of public ownership. The exact size, shape and design of these entities is still being worked through.

At the end of last year, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government to take part in the first stage of these reforms and explore these future service delivery options for three waters. As part of this, we secured up to $8.3 million in funding to maintain and improve three waters infrastructure.

We are expecting the Government’s decision by the middle of this year. Once those decisions have been made, we will consult with you about the way forward for our district. This will be separate to this Long-term Plan and is expected to be undertaken in late 2021. For councils that participate in the reforms, transfer of responsibilities and assets is likely to occur from 2023/24 onwards.

Of course, our community still needs three waters services regardless of any decision that is made. That is why we have included three waters in this Long-term Plan.

For more information on the Government reforms, you can head to https://www.dia.govt.nz/Three-Waters-Reform-Programme

Managing our Critical Assets

Our Asset Management Plans define critical assets as “Those assets with a high consequence of failure. They are often found as part of a network, in which, for example, their failure would compromise the performance of the entire network.” Copies of our Asset Management Plans for Water, Wastewater, Stormwater, Transport, Solid Waste, Property Assets and Parks and Recreation Assets can be found under supporting information.

We consider our critical assets to include assets such the water and wastewater treatment plants for our larger towns, significant public buildings and key transport networks, including bridges.

The failure of our critical assets is a key area of risk for Council. Our asset management plans contain sections on critical assets. This section identifies the events that may disrupt our assets, and the adequacy of the controls that we have in place.

We have undertaken some work to understand our water and wastewater assets. For our water network assets we have focused on improving our knowledge of our network data including data cleansing, confidence rating, critically and condition assessment to enable us to develop a robust renewals strategy for the next Long-term Plan period. For our wastewater networks we are well into a programme of condition assessment of the network which will enable us to forecast our renewal programme more accurately. Our systems to record our required data will become more sophisticated over time.

Climate change

Scientific data shows that the globe is warming and this is starting to impact on the climate. As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture. While sea level rise isn’t a major concern for the Taupō District (at least from a direct impact standpoint), we need to be acutely aware of what the other impacts might be. Climate change has the potential to have significant impacts for local government, especially on our infrastructure. It may also impact tourism which could affect the local economy. Impacts are likely to include:

• Warmer winters. People are likely to enjoy the benefits of warmer winters with fewer frosts. This may have an impact on winter tourism.
• Hotter summers. This will bring increase water demand. This will impact our drinking water supplies. Hotter summers may also damage elements of transport infrastructure, causing damaged roads, with disruption and repair costs. It may also result in increased algal blooms in Lake Taupō, which may have impacts for our local economy and require additional treatment for our drinking water.
• Flooding: We are likely to experience more frequent, intense winter rainfalls. These are expected to increase the likelihood of rivers flooding which will impact our bridges and culvert. We may also experience flooding if our stormwater networks are overwhelmed.
• River flows: are likely to be lower in summer and higher in winter. Lower river flows in summer will raise water temperatures and aggravate water quality problems (eg, through increased algae growth). This may require additional treatment methods at our drinking water treatment plants.

We have started to develop an action plan to look at reducing the emissions that Council generates and also reduce the impacts of climate change on Taupō District Council. Council has already undertaken some action to account for the impacts of climate change, including:

• Implementing a plan change to the District Plan in relation to flood hazards associated with some major rivers and Lake Taupō, which took account of climate change and introduced rules for development in affected areas;
• Introducing electric vehicles to the Council vehicle fleet.

The Long-term Plan also accounts for climate change across many relevant activities, including for example:

• Investigating the possibility of a gas flare at the Broadlands Road Landfill;
• Overland flow path investigations to assess the impacts of more significant rainfalls on stormwater assets;
• Cyanotoxin (toxins from algal blooms in water) treatment upgrades to necessary water treatment plants.

Council will keep up to date with emerging climate change research, modelling and legislative changes and adapt its response accordingly.