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Rodney Local Board is once again looking at where its subdivision boundaries should lie in a bid to give fairer representation to rural residents and ratepayers.
Members already voted to support in principle bringing in new North and South Rural subdivisions at their March meeting, with minor changes to Warkworth, Kumeu and Dairy Flat (MM, Apr 15).
In that scenario, there would be one local board member for North Rural, three for South Rural, two for Warkworth, two for Kumeu and one for Dairy Flat.
However, following concerns over the issue being rushed at the time, Warkworth member Michelle Carmichael asked for another session with Auckland Council principal governance advisor Warwick McNaughton, who is heading up the current representation review.
She said the March decision was more of a starting point and a further workshop was needed to look in more detail at how the population and voting rates were spread.
That was agreed by members and McNaughton attended a board workshop to revisit Rodney issues on Wednesday, May 8.
He once again pointed out that subdivision boundaries needed to be entirely based on population to comply with local government legislation.
Wellsford member Colin Smith said that was why he favoured the option put forward by rural advocacy groups Northern Action Group, Rodney Community Voices and the Landowners and Contractors Association for one large rural subdivision with four members.
“If we have four members for the whole rural area, that’s democracy working,” he said. “The land use has changed and a lot of our rates now are funding stuff in Remuera and all over Auckland, it’s not just going to our community like it used to. Farmers need to be represented at council and at the moment we’ve got just one (representative).”
Warkworth member Tim Holdgate agreed, saying all rural people should be grouped together and he was unhappy with the potential division caused by the creation of new North and South subdivisions.
Carmichael voiced her concerns that all four rural members could come from the more heavily populated south end of Rodney, leaving inadequate representation in the north.
Guy Wishart asked if there was any way that a North Rural subdivision could have two members instead of one, but McNaughton said because of the sparsity of population in the north, the boundary would have to be dropped down to Helensville for that to work.
He added that there would be several opportunities for the public to submit their views and be heard before the Local Government Commission made any final decisions.
Local board members will decide on their final recommendation at their meeting this Wednesday, May 15.
