The streets of some of Tauranga's subdivisions will have their roads resealed with chip seal instead of the more expensive hot mix after New Zealand Transport Agency threatened to pull its funding.

Tauranga City Council was forced to reverse its policy on re-sealing the city's streets on a ‘like for like' basis to a ‘fit for approach' policy at a council meeting on Tuesday.

Streets sealed with hot mix will be resealed with chip seal when they reach the end of their working life.

The streets of subdivisions where hot mix has been used in the past including Cambridge Heights, Bethlehem and parts of Papamoa will now be resealed with chip seal as they approach the end of the hot mix's 20 year working life.

City streets have a mixture of hot mix and chip seal generally based on traffic density. The NZTA subsidises the use of hot mix on busy city streets where traffic volumes warrant its use.

In September 2011 city councillors adopted a policy of replacing hot mix with chip seal on low traffic local roads, but they changed their minds during the ten year plan deliberation process.

That decision was made in spite of ratepayers' submissions largely in favour of using the far cheaper chip seal – 49 to 32 against, with another 38 submissions arguing for both.

When NZTA heard about the council's change of mind, it threatened to pull its subsidy, a move that will cost the city's re-sealing programme $825,000.

In May the NZTA advised council it expects to spend $35.3million in Tauranga City from 2012 to 2015 – an increase of 3.8 per cent.

In June it informed TCC that if it sticks with the ‘like for like policy', NZTA will keep funding at the level of the previous three years.

TCC transport operations manager Martin Parkes says the effect on city streets will be substantial.

The council currently has an 85km or 16 per cent backlog in re-sealing city streets. Persisting with the ‘like for like' policy will grow the backlog, and force the council to spend more of its badly needed resealing budget on fixing an increasing number of potholes and cracks in the seal.

'If you don't keep the road sealed to an appropriate standard they can deteriorate quite quickly,” says Martin.

In the last six years the council resealed 23km or 4 per cent of the city's roading network.

The requirement is about 41 km or 7.7 per cent, putting the council behind schedule.

If the council sticks with the ‘like for like' replacement policy, Martin says the reseal backlog will grow to 140km or 26.5 per cent by the end of the three year period.

NZTA says Tauranga City Council will have to pay all the costs associated with the policy.

Councillor Larry Baldock's motion that the council stick with the like for like policy failed.

Councillors, who earlier supported policy, say NZTA's stance forced them to change their minds – again. They thought the NZTA funding for the next three years was a done deal.

Larry argued the difference was only $30 a year for houses in affected streets and he was confident those residents would be happy to pay a special rate to have their streets re-sealed with hot mix.

Councillor Rick Curach unsuccessfully tried to re-insert a special rate provision in the motion supporting the NZTA wishes, but that also failed.

Mayor Stuart Crosby stated the administrative costs of introducing it makes it unsustainable.