Northlanders’ rates payments are expected to climb to $374 million in the coming financial year, as a Kerikeri district ratepayer says years of cumulative rates increases are forcing her off her land.
By Susan Botting of LDR
The North's expected 2026/2027 rates haul was 10% higher than the $340m collected in the current 2025/2026 financial year.
Oromahoe ratepayer Gail Olliver (73) said she is selling the lifestyle block she bought after moving from Auckland in 2017 to what she believed would be her forever home.
"I'm going to move inland where property is cheaper, so my rates bill will be lower," Olliver said.
Her rates were $5000 a year.
“I am already paying $97 a week in rates. I think of it in weekly amounts because I have to,” Olliver said.
She said she is worried about Far North District Council (FNDC)’s proposed 6.7% rates rise and the council’s rebating system means has a two-year wait for any return entitlement.
Retiree Olliver “dabbles” in retail, selling new and used clothing and bric-a-brac from a small Kawakawa shop, but says she makes little money from it.
Rising rates, combined with insurance and other cost increases, meant she could no longer afford to remain on the land.
Olliver can barely make ends meet, in spite of income from a flat rental on her property, a border in the sleepout next to her house and putting money from her pension towards rates, insurance, power and mortgage payments.
FNDC group manager corporate services Charlie Billington did not comment specifically on Olliver's situation.
Billington said feedback on FNDC's 2026/2027 Annual Plan was open until May 17.
Olliver said the Government's push towards council amalgamations via larger unitary authorities would potentially serve the Far North well.
Amalgamation with other Northland councils would offer the district a larger ratepayer base to cover its many unique costs.
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Olliver was among roughly 100,000 Northland ratepayers facing higher rates across the region in 2026/2027.
District council rates increases of between 5% and 10.1% have been proposed by FNDC, Kaipara District Council (KDC) and Whangārei District Council (WDC).
Northland Regional Council (NRC) has bucked that trend, proposing a rates freeze, in spite of originally budgeting on a 4.04% increase in long term planning.
Northlanders’ 2026/2027 rates are expected to provide FNDC with $76.455m, KDC $38.896m, WDC $129m and NRC $130m.
Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper said about two thirds of people who made submissions on WDC's Annual Plan supported a flat 5% rates increase, one of three options put forward.
About a quarter favoured the 10.1% option.
The balance supported a third option, also set at 5% but adjusted so businesses would pay a slightly smaller share of the overall rates take than residential ratepayers, or in some cases a zero increase.
Couper said WDC was now weighing up its final budget which would be finalising on May 24.
“As usual, the requests for increased levels of services are greater than the fiscal envelope available,” he said.
Mangakahia dairy farmer Andrew Booth (39) said WDC needed to think carefully.
The WDC and NRC ratepayer said his preference was for a lower increase, with the tweaked 5% option his choice.
Couper has previously warned halving the proposed increase would create a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall.
He said this would need to be addressed through a mix of cost savings, reduced services or increased debt.
Booth said he was not in favour of filling the gap through borrowing, which would simply increase council interest costs.
Instead, he urged the council to spend rates only on what was genuinely necessary and within its core responsibilities.
“What ratepayers need might be different from what they want,” Booth said.
He described rates as “a necessary evil” if communities expected council services, and welcomed NRC’s proposed rates freeze.
The Government has signalled NRC will disappear by 2028 under its local government restructuring push.
Booth said amalgamating WDC and NRC could bring benefits where services were duplicated, but warned any merger needed to be handled carefully.
“If they can do it right, yes, but if things fall through the cracks, then I’m not so sure,” he said.
Booth said amalgamation should not result in the loss of critical NRC services such as dairy effluent compliance monitoring, pest control programmes or biodiversity support.
“I would not like to see these fall back on volunteers.”
Titoki’s Booth and his wife Vicky farm the family property beside the Mangakahia River, about 70km upstream from the Kaipara Harbour. They are among more than 1000 landowners taking part in the Kaipara Moana Remediation, New Zealand’s largest harbour restoration programme.
Meanwhile, Kaipara ratepayer Elizabeth Card (81) is viewing KDC’s proposed 7.9% rates rise (after growth) with a degree of resignation.
Card said there was little ratepayers could do beyond “grizzle and carry on”.
The Dargaville retiree who moved North from Auckland to be with family, has paid rates for 56 years and said she was concerned for people living on fixed incomes.
“There are a lot of people in Kaipara struggling to make ends meet,” Card said.
She said public consultation or more information about the council’s rates rise would have been better.
A KDC spokesperson said the council had not publicly consulted on its coming year’s Annual Plan because its budget and work plan aligned with what had been agreed on in longer term planning.
Public consultation, on its proposed coming year’s fees and charges only, closed on May 4.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air.
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