Ōtorohanga District covers 1976 square kilometres of beauty, from the peaceful seaside towns of Kāwhia and Aotea in the west, to tranquil Lake Arapuni on the eastern boundary. There are two urban centres of Ōtorohanga and Kāwhia, surrounded by thriving rural communities.
The Ōtorohanga District is looked after by a team of 60 passionate people who are genuinely dedicated to providing the highest level of service to the people of the Ōtorohanga District.
We’re excited about the opportunity to help build a vibrant District with prosperous and thriving communities that residents can be proud of.
Our Direction, Focus, Priorities and Major Projects
During the next 10 years we will face some significant increases to the cost of delivering our services.
A lot of the costs are for things we must do, like keeping our infrastructure working or upgrading our services to meet government standards. In addition, we’re now in a strong growth phase as our population has increased by more than 500 since 2018, and we expect this growth to continue. We need to plan for and deliver upgrades that can cater for more people and increased business activity.
We’ve considered what we must deliver and what we’d like to deliver and we’ve prioritised the essential items, but also want to invest in the ‘discretionary’ projects that help make our communities great places to be. We’ll also be looking seriously at what climate change forecasts mean for our communities and our services.
We intend to:
Community Outcomes
We’ve been on a journey to create our Community Outcomes for the district.
In 2021, as part of the 10 year Long Term Plan, we held multiple meetings with residents from all over our district, as well as a staff working group. We asked everyone to consider the former Community Outcomes, and through this, a need for a change was identified.
Some innovative and passionate thinking led us to the following: Our Community Outcomes describe what we strive to be - as people, communities and a District.
Community Wellbeing
Whilst much of Council’s focus and investment will remain on managing and delivering core infrastructure services effectively and efficiently, increased emphasis will be placed on the wellbeing outcomes resulting from the services, as well as other services previously less prioritised where they contribute highly to social, environmental, cultural, and/or economic wellbeing of our community.