Proposed Fees and Charges 2026/27

Why did they need to change?

Like many districts and cities across Aotearoa New Zealand, we are experiencing an increase in costs due to high rates of inflation, rising interest rates and other nation and global factors. Because of these increasing costs, we have undertaken a thorough review of our fees and charges for 2025 - 2026.

Some new fees and increases are proposed so we can better balance what is paid through rates and what is paid by service users, and so we can cover the true cost of delivering services.

We are really mindful of cost-of-living pressures on households and businesses, and we’ve worked hard to keep fees and charges as fair and affordable as possible.

What are fees and charges?

User fees and charges are one of the ways we can recover some of the costs of delivering an activity or service directly from those who use, and therefore benefit, from the activity or service.

We set fees and charges to share costs between ratepayers and the people using a particular service (user pays model). There is no perfect balance between the two, but generally where an activity has greater public good, such as our libraries and sport fields, a higher proportion of that activity will be funded by general rates.

What we've done

To complete a review of fees and charges we have:  

• Adjusted fees and charges by the rate of inflation
• Changed fees and charges to align with new legislation and regulations
• Identified where fees need to increase to keep up with rising costs
• Ensured fee increases align with our Revenue and Financing Policy 

What we're proposing

The full list of proposed changes is outlined in the Proposed Fees and Charges Schedule for 2026/27, which can be found online at koreromai.whakatane.govt.nz/fees-charges or as a hard copy at Whakatāne District Council or Murupara Service Centre.

At a glance, we're proposing to:

1. Update Three Waters fees and charges to align with Local Water Done Well and the Backflow Prevention Policy.
2. Introduce new fees and charges for new services, or where costs are not currently being recovered.
3. Increase some existing fees and charges where costs have risen beyond inflation or are not in line with market rates.
4. Apply inflationary adjustment to fees including Resource Consent and Food Control fees.