Infrastructure Strategy | he rautaki haka (new window | 1.1MB)
This document sets out the Dunedin City Council’s (DCC) strategy for managing its three waters and transport infrastructure for the next 30 years. It has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of section 101B of the Local Government Act 2002.
The purpose of the infrastructure strategy is to:
- identify the significant infrastructure challenges facing Dunedin and the DCC
- identify how the DCC will manage or influence these challenges and their implications
- set out the most likely scenario for managing Dunedin’s infrastructure to 2055.
As part of the Council’s long-term plan, the infrastructure strategy lays out the challenges of maintaining our assets, accommodating growth and changing demand, managing our environmental impact, supporting improved public health and safety outcomes and confronting long-term issues like climate change. The long-term plan forecasts the resources needed for ongoing infrastructure renewal and replacement, and includes funding for projects providing solutions to our challenges for the first 9 years up to 2034, with 30-year budgets signalled in the infrastructure strategy. The Council’s financial strategy sets the parameters for funding and financial impacts on ratepayers.
Over the coming 30 years, the DCC will face similar infrastructure challenges across both three waters and transport infrastructure systems: Dunedin is growing, and demand on three waters and transport infrastructure is growing with it; the DCC’s three waters and transport infrastructure is ageing and is vulnerable to natural hazards; regulators and the wider community expect improvements in public health, safety and environmental outcomes; and three waters and transport activities need to support work towards achieving Dunedin’s Zero Carbon 2030 target.
The infrastructure strategy is presented in two parts:
- Part 1: Three waters – this covers the infrastructure related to the DCC’s water supply, stormwater, and sewerage and sewage activities
- Part 2: Transport – this covers the infrastructure related to the DCC’s roading and footpaths activities.
Although subject to similar infrastructure challenges, the three waters and transport activities currently operate within broader contexts with distinct features:
- Three waters: Local government three waters activities are the focus of a nationwide reform programme known as ‘Local Water Done Well.’ Changes to the way local government three waters services are delivered and regulated are anticipated during the early years of this infrastructure strategy. The Government’s key principles for Local Water Done Well are:
- Introducing greater central government oversight, economic and quality regulation
- Fit-for-purpose service delivery models and financing tools
- Setting rules for water services and infrastructure investment
- Ensuring water services are financially sustainable.
- Transport: asset management planning and funding local government transport activities is undertaken in conjunction with the New Zealand Transport Agency / Waka Kotahi, with overarching direction provided by the Government Policy Statement. Priorities identified in the 2024 Government Policy Statement on Land Transport are safety and economic productivity.
The two-part approach of this infrastructure strategy enables us to clearly reflect the influence of these distinct contexts for infrastructure management over the coming years.
The strategy set out in this document aims to ensure the DCC delivers infrastructure services to Dunedin’s communities in a cost effective, sustainable, and coordinated manner, consistent with its vision, strategic framework, and long-term objectives. The DCC needs to make smart, affordable investments in three waters and transport infrastructure renewals, upgrades and extensions over the next 30 years to respond to challenges and maintain the levels of service enjoyed by residents and visitors in one of the world’s great small cities.