Masterton Ratepayers & Residents Association

05/10/2026

More space for less people? In less than a year all the staff concerned with the three water infrastructures will be housed in the old government departmental building. You do have to wonder about the rationale behind this. 🤔 Has there really been a saving?

📢 Our Queen Street customer service centre upgrades are nearly complete!

👉 From 9am, Tuesday 13 October, our customer service team will return to 161 Queen Street. If you need to visit us, you'll be able to access our new customer service centre from that date.

👉 Until midday, Friday 9 October, our team will continue to be available at Waiata House, 27 Lincoln Road. From Friday afternoon, through Monday 12 October, the team will be relocating, meaning in person customer service functions with the customer service team won’t be available.

👉 If you want to chat to one of the customer service team, they will be available at 161 Queen Street from 9am Tuesday 13 October. Please note, if you have a meeting with one of the rates team, these meetings will continue at Waiata House, 27 Lincoln Road.

The renovated space features an accessible customer service centre and council chambers, dedicated meeting spaces to meet with elected members, and a new base for the Emergency Operations Centre.

Masterton District Council moved to purchase and renovate the Queen Street building in August 2025, rather than proceeding with the Waiata House extension proposed in the 2024-34 Long-Term Plan. This option more than halved the project's cost, delivering long-term savings while ensuring practical, cost-effective solutions remained at the forefront of decision-making.

Read more about the upgrades on our What's Up Whakaoriori? Page, https://whatsup.mstn.govt.nz/queen-street-customer-service-centre-upgrade

03/10/2026

A follower sent in these photos showing the end result of the Saturday morning fire. A builder looking at it said it was fixable. Let us hope that Trust House do save it
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18FrAh3AgM/?mibextid=wwXIfr

30/09/2026

And here is the Times Age summary of the survey posted below this one. It seems that the CEO agrees with our conclusions?

30/09/2026

MASTERTON COMPARES WELL — AND THERE’S STILL WORK TO DO
Credit where credit’s due. The latest Key Research benchmarking report comparing 22 councils shows Masterton is performing above the average for district councils in a number of areas. Some of the positives:

♻️ Waste management: 73% satisfaction vs 61% district average

💰 Value for money: 40% vs 27% — a significant 13-point difference

🏛️ Quality of services: 54% vs 45%

🤝 Engagement & consultation: 37% vs 34%

🛣️ Roading infrastructure: 39% vs 37%

🚗 Parking availability: 59% vs 53%

👥 Performance of elected members: 36% vs 33%

Kerbside services also score strongly, with 80% satisfaction for rubbish and recycling collection and 83% for recycling.

Overall satisfaction with Council is 40%, compared with 38% for district councils, while reputation is 39% compared with 38%.

But the report also identifies areas needing attention — particularly water management, regulatory services, footpaths and walkways/cycleways. And 40% overall satisfaction still means there is considerable room to improve.

📄 Source: Key Research 2025/26 Annual Residents Survey Benchmarking Report.

ARS - Benchmarking 2025-26 Masterton DC.pdf

30/09/2026

Positive move by Masterton District Council to help with reuniting animals with their owners.

29/09/2026

BREAKING NEWS: Ballance Street dug up twice within 15 months to do the same job?
Where the water table is high (most of Masterton), special care must be taken when installing pipes and manholes so ground water does NOT enter the system - a well known and understood fact. The council’s usual contractor is City Care but G & C are used occasionally. In this specific case, it seems, to sort out an inadequate job done the first time in 2025.
The first photo - Ballance St, June 2025, sewerage pipe and manhole work. City Care truck is present.
Second photo - June 2025, same manhole.
Third photo - September 2026, same area from a distance with G&C present. Getting ready to dig up again tomorrow, we are told.
Evidently City Care were not allowed to redo the job. We will investigate to see if they messed up in 2025.

25/09/2026

Decision made. How the policy is being applied. The article doesn’t say about areas using car parking spaces.

Businesses in Masterton’s C*D will not have to pay an annual fee to use public space outside their shops.

25/09/2026

Anyone with an hour or so to spare might like to read how Masterton District Council has again changed its mind. Having told us that parking spaces would only be lost to ensure disabled parking spaces were available, they have now developed a policy that allows up to 12, yes you read that correctly, 12 parking spaces to be leased by businesses to erect canopies, umbrellas, etc and expand their business area. ( 21 car parks in total will be lost in the refurbishment of Queen St - dies this include the 12 that can be leased or is it in addition?)
But the good news is there shall only be 2 spaces per block. Maybe someone should check- how many have been lost for the huge canopy and hard area outside 10 O’clock Cookie Company. What do we think of this policy?

https://www.mstn.govt.nz/repository/libraries/id:2jr77ddvv17q9sn6a3db/hierarchy/Documents/Council/Policies%20and%20Bylaws/Policies/Use%20of%20Public%20Places%20by%20Adjoining%20Business%20Premises%20Policy.pdf

24/09/2026

MASTERTON DISTRICT COUNCIL IS CHANGING THE WAY RATES ARE DISTRIBUTED. BUT WILL THIS MAKE IT FAIRER?

The way Masterton’s council slices its rates revenue pie is going to change with a proposal to shift towards more capital value-based rates to comply with the law.

The review was driven by the upcoming transfer of Masterton’s water services to the new regional water services entity, Waīti Waters.

At a recent meeting, the council’s senior policy advisor Sophie Bradley said without changing its revenue and financing policy, the council would exceed the statutory limit on targeted uniform charges.

A targeted uniform charge is a fixed, flat-fee rate applied equally to specific properties or households to fund a defined service or facility, such as animal control or parks and reserves.

Under legislation, no more than 30% of a council’s rates revenue can be collected through targeted uniform charges, but removing water services would resulted in 32.2% of rates revenue coming from these charges.

Options being explored by the council included allocating rural solid waste costs and the rural share of parks, reserves and cemeteries through a capital value rate instead of a targeted charge.

Another option proposed was changing the funding mechanism for the council’s road storm damage fund from a 70% rural-30% urban split to 78.3% urban-21.7% rural split.

This reflected the real population split in the district.

A report to council said the benefits of maintaining a resilient and connected transport network were shared across the district through continued access to homes, businesses, schools, health services, emergency response and freight routes.

“The increasing frequency and severity of severe weather events mean that impacts may occur across the wider (rural or urban) transport network and infrastructure,” the report said.

“Officers therefore recommend allocating storm damage costs using the revised urban/rural population allocation.

“This approach better reflects the district-wide benefits of resilience and recovery funding and provides a more equitable allocation of costs between urban and rural communities.”

The council would meet on October 7 to review the draft revenue and financing policy, proposed consultation material, and a recommended consultation approach.

The policy review had also prompted discussion regarding industry contributions to roading maintenance.

Councillor Stella Lennox raised concerns that a report by consultants Morrison Low -examining roading impacts from dairy, pastoral farming, and forestry - was only provided to Masterton elected members this month.

Neighbouring Carterton District Council used the same report to propose a targeted roading rate that would increase contributions from forestry and dairy ratepayers.

Only the Carterton portion of the report had been publicly released.

Masterton District Council chief executive Kym Fell said workshops with Morrison Low would be held with elected members.

If councillors chose to pursue the report’s findings, amendments could be incorporated into the council’s Long-Term Plan consultation process.

-LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air