Tauranga may be being shortchanged by its commercial ratepayers to the tune of at least $10 million a year.

That's because 80 per cent of the rates collected by the Tauranga City Council are paid by residential customers, and about 20 per cent by commercial ratepayers, according to figures obtained by city councillor John Robson.

City Councillor John Robson.

In other New Zealand cities; Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin the residential ratepayers pay less than 70 per cent of the rates, while commercial ratepayers pay more than 30 per cent of the rates.

'Compared with residential ratepayers in the other big cities, residential ratepayers in Tauranga pay more than their share,” says John.

'And non-residential ratepayers are short-changing the city.”

He wants commercial ratepayers to step up and pay their share. Some business people in Tauranga often assert that the city is being held back in terms of amenities because residential rates are too low, says John.

'Privately, they tell Councillors that they should put the rates up, and publicly they berate Councillors for not having vision, i.e. not having the ‘courage' to put rates up.”

Business owner Peter Farmer says if Tauranga is out of kilter with other New Zealand cites, then it's something that should be examined in closer detail.

'I think we should reflect the national average,” says Peter. 'If there was a change to be made it would need to be spread over ten years so as not to make it too tough on small businesses that have done their budgeting on where they area at.

'If we are out of step significantly that would need to be researched.”

Comparatively high growth has been driving Tauranga Council for more than a decade. To keep up with the pace, the city has to borrow the money for the infrastructure required by new housing developments; water, sewerage, stormwater pipes, roading etc.

Most of that money is eventually repaid from developers via development contributions, but the fact the council has to borrow to keep up the demands of ongoing growth, means it has little ‘borrowing room' left to spend on amenities for the city and its ratepayers.

Development contributions repayments money is not money the council can build a museum with or build a new council building with, it'srepaying the debt the council incurred to put the infrastructure in the ground to allow the growth to happen.