Frequently Asked Questions

A Long-Term Plan, or LTP, is the Council’s “road map”, covering the next 10 years. It describes the services the Council intends to provide for its community, projects to be undertaken, budgets, how everything is to be funded, and how the Council’s performance in delivering its key services will be measured.

This LTP covers the period July 2024-34 – but LTPs are refreshed every three years. Our last LTP was adopted in June 2021.

As part of the process to develop an LTP, the Council is required by law to consult its community on what it is planning. The consultation document sets out what is in the proposed LTP, including major projects and changes to funding over the 10-year period. It identifies options, and costs, considered by the Council’s elected members, as well as explaining why particular options are preferred by the Council. It includes an overview of our financial and infrastructure strategies and an overview of planned major projects.

There is also an opportunity for residents and ratepayers to put forward their ideas to the Council.

Consultation opens on Friday 5 April and runs through to 10am, Monday 6 May.

Anyone! We do need people making a submission to supply their full name. Submitters can ask that their name not be published with their submission if they have good reason for this, however for anyone who would prefer not to be specifically identified, it might be worthwhile looking at being part of a group submission or asking whānau to include some feedback in their submission. Either way, we’re keen to hear what you have to say.

By law, we have to state what our preferred option is. This doesn’t mean it’s a done deal!We’re open to hear your feedback on it before we make any final decisions.

The Council debated each of the options presented in this Long-Term Plan consultation document, and all were passed with a majority vote. This includes the alternative options that have been included for community feedback.

There are four big decisions the Council would specifically like to receive feedback about:

• the future of the Town Hall, library, and archive
• improvements to our town centre
• changes to council funding for some community groups and organisations
• changes to the way some services are delivered.

There are more Q&As for each of these big decisions on this page.

There are a few things coming down the track that we’re keen to hear some early views on. These include:

• how we respond to changing consents from Greater Wellington Regional Council that are required to fill Henley Lake and the Lake of Remembrance
• a Customer Services Review
• reviews of our policies on Rates Remission and Postponement on Māori Freehold Land.

You’ll find information about these on page 42 of the consultation document, and questions specific to these in the submission form.

There’s a lot that goes into creating an LTP. You can find the supporting information for our 2024-34 LTP on the Documents and Information page.

This plan would see an average rate increase of 10.6 per cent in year one, with further increases sitting at around six per cent over years two to five. This would see a cumulative rate increase of 34.5 per cent in the first five years of this plan, and of 53.5 per cent over the full 10 years.

This is likely to change given things like inflation, unexpected costs, or new projects being agreed by the Council over the lifespan of the plan.

Overarching financial information can be found from page 44 of the consultation document, with fuller financial information available on the Documents and Information page.

By May 2022, the estimated cost of the project had risen from the originally agreed $30 million to $71.3 million (including contingency). The elected members of Council thought this was unaffordable, so we have been looking at alternative options aimed at meeting the outcomes of the Civic Facility project but using locations we already own.

Because of this, we have split the Civic Facility project into two:

• The Town Hall
• The Masterton District Library and Wairarapa Archive

The Council is proposing three options for the community to give their feedback on:

• Option 1: Demolish the Town Hall and Municipal Buildings (including the façade), retain Waiata House and Queen Street premises. Estimated cost $3,345,205.
• Option 2: Demolish the Town Hall, build new Town Hall and refurbish the existing Municipal Building. Estimated cost $45,355,776.
• Option 3 (Preferred option): Demolish Town Hall and Municipal Buildings, build new Town Hall and expand Waiata House. Estimated cost $38,671,780.

Our architects came up with the idea when looking at the current Municipal Building and Town Hall site and realising the Municipal Building – even if refurbished – would not be big enough to co-locate all council staff. Extending Waiata House would meet the project’s intent of co-locating council staff, while saving money on the rent of our Queen Street Service Centre and being more cost effective than refurbishing the current Municipal Building.

The proposed Waiata House extension would create:

• a new, fully accessible Council Chamber (which could double as public meeting rooms when not in use)
• a fit-for-purpose Civil Defence HQ for Wairarapa – built to the appropriate earthquake code
• a small office for our customer services staff and call centre (currently located in Queen Street)
• some storage for customer services for things like water storage tanks
• a secure lock up and small lab room for our environmental services activities.

The rest of Waiata House would remain as it is now.

The façade is currently defined at the outside walls in their entirety. Given its earthquake-prone status, the Town Hall façade (the wall on the outside and back of the auditorium) would need to be demolished – however Options 2 and 3 include retaining the Municipal Building façade - the façade that faces the town square and the façade that runs along Chapel Street.

While our QS can estimate the costs associated with options 1 and 3, we simply don’t know how much option 2 will actually cost. There are many issues than can crop up when refurbishing under-performing existing buildings. For the Municipal Building this includes how much it will cost to safely remove the town hall section, how we can get the building u to the earthquake standards, and what underlaying problems there might be that we can’t see without starting the refurbishment.

The Wellington Town Hall refurbishment is a good example of how costs can blow out much more than anyone anticipated for this type of activity. We have tried to highlight this complexity in our consultation document so that people are aware of the risks if this is their preferred option.

In a worst-case scenario, this option could be well underway with money spent, then escalate to the point that the work cannot be completed or the building needs to come down despite any money already spent on it.

We believe the community wants a space for performances or other functions – however this consultation does include an option to demolish the Town Hall and Municipal Building and not rebuild them, should the community decide that is the option they would prefer.

No decisions have been made around that. The Council would have to go back out to the community to decide what to do with that space.

David has been part of the working group that developed the three options we are consulting on. Our architects had access to David’s older plans for the site when coming up with their own concepts. The Council’s preferred option has been endorsed by David as his preferred plan.

Under the Building Act, the Council must take action to address the Town Hall’s earthquake-prone status by 2026.

For the library, we will still need to deal with the issues that we are working to resolve through this project, including the library being too small for a community our size, and needing to find another larger space to store our archives.

Rent would also continue to be paid for our customer service centre offices on Queen Street.

The Masterton District Library building is currently no longer fit for purpose. The current size and layout limits opportunities for the display of materials, places for study, and space for programmes and events. The library building has a range of maintenance issues that need to be addressed urgently. These include water damage, leaks in the building, mould in the basement, replacing the roof, heating and cooling system replacement, and improved accessibility at the front entrance.

Early studies have shown our current library as not being fit-for-purpose when it comes to modern library use. Where libraries used to be rooms full of books where people quietly read, they are now bustling hubs where community can come together to share skills, experiences, learning, and technology. Behind the scenes, staff and customer accessibility is an issue, and issues in the building such as leaks are having an impact on how safely and efficiently the building can run.

Where we describe an outcome as ‘fit-for-purpose’ we are describing a building that has been designed to include this broad range of activities. This would be achieved with options 2 and 3.

Where we have described the outcome as ‘functional’ we mean a building that no-longer leaks and has functioning HVAC. This would be achieved with option 1.

Note - options 2 and 3 would also see leaks and HVAC issues addressed as part of their build.

You can read the report here.

The year-to-date data shows that we're on track to reach 179,000 in-person visits to the Library and Archive by year end. These numbers are tracking up post-covid, and will the our highest visitor count since 2017-18.

Yes - the estimated costs for the Town Hall, Library and Archive all contain contingency and full fit-out costs (for the build options).

No. If a build option is chosen we will look at fundraising options available to us, including the potential of creating a fundraising trust - separate to council - to help lower the actual costs for our ratepayers.

The financial model assumption proposed is that all new loan funding will be allowed to be repaid over 25 years

In 2015, the Council identified that undertaking essential infrastructure improvements required on Queen Street created an opportunity to consider a wider redesign and layout of the CBD and look at what additional improvements, enhancements and benefits could be achieved.

The Masterton Revamp project was initially identified as being a 10-year work programme, broken down into discrete projects to be completed over the 2021-31 LTP.

During 2023, officers obtained updated costs for the projects, with new estimates showing cost estimates had increased by 70 per cent. The elected members of Council thought this was unaffordable.

The Council has put forward two options:

• Option 1 (Preferred option): Do the minimum - replace critical infrastructure only. Estimated cost $6.48m.
• Option 2: Continue the planned Queen Street redevelopment. Estimated cost $14.12m.

Yes – 21 carparks would be removed along the length of Queen Street in the blocks between Park St and Jackson St as part of the redesign, however the road layout along Queen Street would include consideration being given to accessible carparking for people with mobility issues.

The Council is revisiting the way community grounds can apply for funding and the amount of funding available in an effort to make funding applications more equitable, and to reduce the rates impact on ratepayers.

Council currently has a mix of arrangements for funding community groups and organisations.  Some have multi-‐year agreements and receive funding, usually for three years, via the LTP process.  Others apply for grants via the annual Community Wellbeing Grant round.

To achieve greater consistency and take a more equitable approach to funding, the Council proposes moving most LTP aligned funding to annual contestable funding from 2024/25. Applications would open in July 2024 and decisions would be advised in September 2024.

Organisations that currently have multi‐year agreements that would be impacted by this change include Cobblestones, Digital Seniors, Fab Lab Masterton, Life Flight Trust, Masterton Foodbank, Nuku Ora (previously Sport Wellington Wairarapa), Pasifika o Wairarapa, Riversdale Beach Surf Life Saving Club, Te Awhina Community Hub, Wairarapa Community Centre Trust, Wai‐Waste Food Rescue, Wellington Free Ambulance and Wings Over Wairarapa.

Funding for Business Wairarapa and Destination Wairarapa would also become contestable annually as part of this change when current agreements expire.  This funding would be contestable for economic development projects. Funding for events would remain as a separate contestable for events.

In addition, Council has agreed to consider funding for the Five Town Trails Project through the annual contestable funding process.

Levels of service describes the outputs of the Council.

This could mean things like how we manage and maintain our public parks and open spaces, providing a library and archive, the ability to discuss building consents with a member of our team… everything we do that that impacts the way our community receives a service from council has an agreed way that it is delivered. We call this its ‘level of service’.

Over the past 12 months, council staff have reviewed all service levels, taking into consideration feedback from our community via our previous Annual Plan engagement and Council’s satisfaction survey.  A key focus of the review was to identify efficiencies and reduce the rates impact for our community.

While the Council has asked for a more in-depth review of some levels of service, there are some things we are proposing to change now.

These were the services the Council identified as less disruptive to make changes to in the short term, or those that did not focus primarily on Masterton.

No. The Council feel that there is already some great work happening our community and they want to empower those groups with a climate focus to do the work rather than employing specialist staff to do this.