TTPP Costs Climb Again – But Commissioners' Fees Forecast To Drop
Hearing Commissioner costs for the West Coast's new District Plan are still running ahead of budget - but their bill for the year now looks set to be less hefty than predicted.
A meeting yesterday of the Tai o Poutini Plan committee yesterday heard that Commissioner costs were running more than half a million dollars over the year-to-date budget of $142,667.
Consultant planners and contractors' fees were also over budget by $241,000.
But project manager Jo Armstrong said she now expected the Commissioner-related costs to be nearly $450,000 less than forecast by next June.
'I have highlighted for most of the year that there would be insufficient budget for that Hearing Commissioner fee item…but I do think the full year forecast that I put forward earlier may have been overstated…so that's good news.'
And [council] employee costs for the period were down by $92,000 - less than half the budget forecast.
There has never been a fixed budget for the Plan.
The West Coast Regional Council was ordered by the Local Government Commission to administer the lengthy process and has had to forecast costs as best it can, rating and borrowing to cover them as they arise.
The TTPP committee's response to the 'good news' this week was muted.
Its members - council leaders and iwi - were rocked last month by estimates that the 'one plan to rule them all' will have cost West Coasters more than $8 million by the time it's released in September.
The independent commissioners who heard all the TTPP submissions and drove the length and breadth of the Coast to do it, are now working their way through its chapters, finalising the rules and writing their reports.
The added expenses for the period had come about because of extra work and services that were unforeseen, Ms Armstrong explained.
Media costs for advertising, expected to cost about $8000, had climbed to nearly $20,000.
That was down to the need to notify a variation to the Natural Hazards chapter and call for further submissions after changes to the maps following a Lidar survey.
And legal expenses, although less than predicted, came to $62,000 .
'We've been taking a lot of legal advice on different topics that the Hearings Commissioners requested …to make sure their recommendations are well-grounded,' Ms Armstrong said.
A number of builders and developers around the West Coast are awaiting the release of the 'Decisions' version of the Plan in spring, with zoning changes expected to open up new areas of land for housing.
One of the larger projects waiting for the green light is a 200-lot subdivision at Moana, that was submitted to the Grey District Council several years ago as a private plan change, but withdrawn in anticipation of the new Plan.
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