Representation review 2021

Council is the voice of local people, representing and balancing a range of interests. In 2021 we consulted on how our Council should be structured to better represent you and your community for the next six years and two local body elections.

The Local Government Commission released their final determination on 6 April 2022.

Our new representation arrangements

The Local Government Commission’s final determination on 6 April 2022 sees our district keeping four wards and five community boards, as proposed following the representation review in 2021. The determination makes some changes to our final proposal. The new arrangements will be in place for the October 2022 local body elections.    

Councillors

The Commission’s determination maintains the mixed model of representation comprising ten councillors and a mayor, but changes the ratio of ward to district-wide councillors from 5:5 to 7:3.

Currently Kāpiti Coast District has five ward councillors and five district-wide, which Council proposed to remain. The Commission’s decision adds an extra councillor to both the Waikanae and Paraparaumu wards, and reduces the number of district-wide councillors from five to three.

Ōtaki and Paekākāriki–Raumati wards will have one councillor each, Waikanae will have two, Paraparaumu three, and three councillors will represent the district as a whole.

Wards and boundary changes

The determination maintains four wards (Ōtaki, Waikanae, Paraparaumu and Paekākāriki–Raumati) but makes changes to our proposed boundaries for Te Horo and Raumati to achieve better representation under the fair representation rule (+/- 10% rule).

The plans for the Kāpiti Coast District boundaries and wards can be found on the Local Government Commission's website at Boundary descriptions. The new boundaries are available in our GIS maps.

Community boards

The Commission’s determination agrees with the five community boards in line with our final proposal: Ōtaki, Waikanae, Paraparaumu, Paekākāriki, and Raumati.

• Ōtaki and Waikanae community board boundaries are aligned to their respective Ward boundaries.
• The Paraparaumu Community Board is aligned to the Paraparaumu Ward area excluding the Raumati community southwest of the Kāpiti Coast Airport.
• The Raumati Community Board boundaries are from Waterfall Road/Queen Elizabeth Park into the Paraparaumu Ward to the northern end of Wharemauku Road and the southwestern boundary of Kāpiti Airport.
• The Paekākāriki Community Board boundaries extend south from Waterfall Road/Queen Elizabeth Park.

The plans for the Kāpiti Coast District boundaries and wards can be found on the Local Government Commission's website at Boundary descriptions. The new boundaries are available in our GIS maps.

Final proposal

We recommended a democratic system very similar to our current system.

The final proposal comprised:

• four wards and five community boards 
• the mixed model of a mayor and ten councillors (five ward councillors (with two in Paraparaumu because of its larger population), and five district-wide)
• the current names for wards and community boards.

It made slight changes to ward boundaries:

• Te Horo from Te Hapua Road will shift north into the Ōtaki Ward.
• The Paekākāriki-Raumati Ward boundary moves north to the corner of Wharemauku Road and Marine Parade.

Appeals and objections to the final proposal were forwarded to the Local Government Commission for their consideration. The Local Government Commission held appeal/objection hearings through Zoom on Thursday 3 February 2022 – watch the recording on their Youtube channel.

The Local Government Commission made their final determination on 6 April 2022. 

You can read the Council report and the briefing to councillors on the final proposal.

How we arrived at our final proposal

We’re required by the Local Electoral Act 2001 to review our elected representation arrangements at least every six years.

Our last review was in 2015, so we checked in with our community again in 2021. The updated representation arrangements will stay in effect for six years (two election cycles), or until the next review.

In the first half of 2021, we worked with an independent research company engaging people from our community to get in-depth qualitative information on what they think about their representation. We provided this information to councillors as a document, Community Voice [PDF 287 KB], to help them put together an initial proposal. 

We checked in with our community on:

1. Identifying communities of interest.
2. Councillors:
   • The total number there should be for the district.
   • Whether they’re elected from wards or 'at large' across the whole district, or by a mix of both wards and 'at large'.
3. The boundaries of wards and constituencies, and their names.
4. Community boards– whether we should have community boards in our district and if so:
   • the number of boards
   • their names and boundaries
   • the number of members for each board, including any appointed members.

Councillors have already agreed other parts of the review:

• not to include a Māori ward for electoral purposes
• to maintain the Single Transferable Voting (STV) system
• to run a Council-led representation review process.

Councillors were briefed on the community research and engagement results, then considered four options before coming up with a preferred option. They directed Council staff to refine these further, and decided the final details of a proposal for public consultation at the Council meeting on 26 August 2021.

You can read  the Council briefings and reports under Elected member briefings.

The process

Several dates for the review are set down by the Local Government Commission. In order to ensure we meet those dates, we will follow the process outlined below:

Communities of interest

The review looked at our ‘communities of interest’ for fair and effective representation. A community of interest is a group of people who have a common geographical, economic, social, historical or other bond – they’re where people feel they belong; where they live, work, shop, go to school and play.

Kāpiti Coast residents often move between communities while they ‘live, work and play’. This means we need to look at how our local body voting boundaries reflect peoples’ sense of community or belonging.

‘Effective representation’ is about accessibility to elected members, and the size and configuration of an area. We need to look at how residents access councillors, and how councillors can get feedback from our communities

‘Fair representation’ means each elected general ward councillor should represent a similar number of people, within 10 percent. If we have good reasons not to comply with this, the Local Government Commission may allow us to have different levels of representation.

Councillors

We currently have 10 councillors, plus the mayor. Five councillors are elected by ward (a geographical area), and five are elected ‘at large’ (representing the whole district). As part of the review, we’re asking residents if they’d like councillors to be elected from wards or ‘at large’ across the whole district, or by a mix of both wards and ‘at large’.

Community boards

Kāpiti Coast has four community boards: Ōtaki, Paraparaumu/Raumati, Waikanae and Paekākāriki. Each has four members, making a total of 16 community board members. As part of the review, we asked residents if they support the existing arrangement of community boards, or if they’d like to see changes and if so, what changes they’d like.

Role

Community boards represent the interests of their community to the Council, and can make decisions about some issues in their boundaries. Boards make submissions to Council and other statutory agencies. They also make grants to local individuals and groups for community purposes.

Board representatives can sit at Council meetings and contribute to the debate, but do not have voting rights. Their contribution helps ensure Council takes account of what each local community wants as they make decisions.

Representation cost

Councillors and Community Board members are paid to attend meetings and are reimbursed for some costs. See Elected member remuneration expenses and allowances.

The cost to ratepayers of representation is fixed. Elected members share the fixed amount, so if there are more elected members, each will receive less remuneration.

For more information about our representation review email [email protected]