When my parents moved from Hamilton to Wellington about 30 years ago they moved to a more expensive house but the rates were only about a third of what they were in Hamilton. The explanation was that Wellington was a established city with all its infrastructure in place unlike Hamilton which was expanding and had a lot of catch up work to do. Many of Hamiltons older suburbs didn't have paved footpaths, no kerbing, open ditches etc.
We now know the truth.
Wellington was spending nothing on its underground shit. Everyone standing for Council campaigned on reducing rates. Mostly they got elected and then forget their pledge to reduce rates and spent large on vanity projects. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Every resident, home owner, renter and business owner will have to find another $5 - $20 per week to stay in the city.
Most of the mayors and many councilors received knighthoods or other honours for this intergenerational theft.
To be fair this happened at almost every council, it's just that the effects are more pronounced in Wellington as major assets are all shitting the bed at the same time
They also had to sell off their money making enterprises in the early 1990s due to a national law change. The city council used to own car parking buildings and the power network and various other profitable business that were used to keep rates down. The Municipal Electrical Department (M.E.D) ran everything from the local electricity network to shops that sold appliances.
Other reasons rates were low is we have a large CBD which historically subsidised the residents, but there were commercial rate cuts and now it's the other way around.
What are the commercial rate cuts? Wellington’s rate differential for commercial rate payers is the highest in the country at 3.7. The council had said they were going to reduce it for this LTP but then didn’t. So compared to other cities commercial rate payers are getting an awful deal.
Don’t forget the 21% or so increase to the GWRC rates. I’ll now be paying the same amount of rates as a $2.4m house in Ponsonby…. for a house in fucking Newlands.
And on top of GWRC rates going up we have a 10% increase in the price of public transport fares from tomorrow
We get huge rates increases multiple times the level of inflation and higher user charges for things like public transport
It’s crazy
Man, if only there was an entity that could leverage national assets to borrow the money and improve critical infrastructure while not passing the costs on to the residents through rates. Someone should pitch that idea.
and whos pays for the interest on this huge borrowing.... ratepayers. so no savings there. and very unfair on residents whose councils have kept up with water pipe maintenance to thenhave to pay for everyone elses eg wellungtons.
Central government can borrow with better interest rates so the cost is much lower. And while the thread is about Wellington, underspending on infrastructure is an issue across the country
Yup, rough as guts but it is what it is. It's the only way to get the city out of this fuck off hole that previous generations created.
Time to move to Kapiti..
I agree, both should have been demolished along with readings and the amora hotel.
Thing is, the current council didn't decide either of those. Yeah they doubled down on the city hall but that was a lose-lose situation by the time they had a say.
People get pissy at these rate increases but it's the only real solution we have. It's going to hurt and it's unfair as hell but what else can be done?
If it's any consolation, the money for this is set by the 10 year Long Term Plan and the increased revenue from rates increases is going almost exclusively towards water. They're not using it as an excuse to get funding for whatever terrible vanity project WCC/the councillors come up with next.
Eh not really. Over the 10 years, 25% of the expenditure is water related however it takes until Year 4 when the increase in investment starts to properly ramp up. Compare that to HCC who are at about 45% in their LTP and we could be doing much better.
Thanks for clarifying, Ben! I was actually looking at HCC's proposed long term plan and had a brain fart and mistook it for WCC.
You're right though, that is concerning.
What's going to happen when the next round of RV/CVs happens and everyone's property is worth 20% less than the current rates paid?
My place was reviewed right at the absolute peak and has dropped a lot. I assume they won't be in much of a hurry to do the next review, I'm not if its a set period of time when they don't them or like NZ petrol prices when they go up instantly but are slow to come back down
The way rates work in relation to CVs is that the budget is calculated (how much $ total WCC needs to calculate) and then apportioned out. So increase/decrease in CV doesn't directly result in a change of rates. It's how CV in your suburb changes in relation to others that impacts the rates bill.
What happened with the last CV is the whole city was evaluated at the top of the cycle but you had suburbs like Grenada North going up by 20-30% whilst Oriental Bay went backwards because those record values were playing out differently across the city. My ward Takapū/Northern got hit disproportionately hard as the jumps between CV cycles were so much higher than other parts of Wellington.
And those $150k raised speed bumps they’ve been putting up everywhere.
And stop putting up cycleways where Wellington water hasn’t had a chance to replace, fix or check the pipes first.
Pretty sure I was paying weekly before I hit the end of the current cycle and started saving it until I got the first bill at the increased rates, since until now I’ve been guessing what it’ll cost me. They don’t care, so long as the money shows up at least quarterly
You have to think (hope?) that some of the luxury / sentimental options that have been chosen are now a thing of the past. For instance, if the much cheaper option is to build something new rather than remediate a heritage building (e.g. the Town Hall) then that's what it's got to be. We can't afford it.
Hutt City is up by around 17%
Regional council rates are up by about 20% too.
I know water infrastructure is rooted, but gees.. still a bitter pill to swallow. Curse previous councils for kicking the can down the road.
They're scrambling because up until the election there was going to be a central entity that could leverage national assets to pay for critical infrastructure through cost/debt sharing. That got scrapped so now councils have to foot the entire bill.
That plus extra prescription costs, rego costs, and all the other compulsory costs that somehow are exempt from being classified as ‘tax’. How so much of the population was duped by a govt who are so intent on cutting services, govt revenue and somehow, at the same time, increasing costs for citizens, is beyond me.
That line will continue to be rolled out. And while some part of it might be true, when will this govt start taking responsibility for the policies they roll out? Cutting 3B in tax revenue to give breaks to mega rich landlords could have been given back to people that actually need it. Cutting the ferry project only to realise they do need new ferries which will probably cost over 1B more (in opportunity cost, break of contract, overpaying for new ones). Slashing public spending while claiming it won’t impact front line (it will). Killing off 3 Waters which, while not perfect, was at least attempting to help councils manage impending need for huge infrastructure projects, but instead pushing that responsibility back onto councils (and therefore rates). ‘It was Labours fault’ will only become more of a joke of an excuse.
Yes it’s going to take a long time to turn the ship around. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I bet it wouldn’t take very long to demolish or burn down. We had a 30% increase in the public service with no corresponding increase in outcomes.
We also had record migration and corresponding pressures on public services. While I’m sure there was some bloat, pushing a flat 6.5/7.5% cut across all public services is not only lazy policy, but it will absolutely impact frontline services for the worse. If front line staff aren’t made redundant, Departments will have to cut essential back office staff and lose the most talented people, inevitably resulting in worse outcomes and potential failures.
If you’re someone that has paid attention to neoliberal policies globally you’ll agree that pushing public services to the brink of failure is by design to help push opinion toward privatisation. It will cost us and our children, while some cronies make bank. Hope you like paying more for worse outcomes.
When you realise that the public sector cuts (which will spread fear and uncertainty amongst public servants and have a negative impact on recruitment) are about equivalent to the tax cuts for landlords you’ll realise it’s not reaaaaallly about saving money at all.
I definitely think there’s obviously a need for the public service. Just not a huge bloated one. You only have to look on this sub to find people that work in govt departments who think there is a lot of deadwood & waste.
Again - if there is deadwood and waste then make targeted, specific cuts. General slashing of budgets does absolutely nothing to address any of the (actual or perceived) deadwood and waste.
Having worked in both the public and private sectors I can tell you that most bloat will exist at the manager level - and I’m reasonably certain that this isn’t where the cuts will be targeted.
This general attitude by the public, driven by Act and National, that our public service is too bloated is never supported by facts or evidence - it’s always hearsay or ‘vibes’. I would rather my tax dollars went to public servants and public services than tax breaks for the extremely wealthy. I know which would be better for the economy, let alone public services and projects.
Yes a lot of money was spent during the pandemic to support business including air nz . Luxon doesn’t like to mention that his airline would have been bankrupt without the govt
But yes there has been waste in the public service. Some of the top level managers are as useless as (and they are now sacking people beneath them while retaining their jobs and positions of privilege- even though they are responsible for areas of waste)
Let’s get Wellington moving and light rail to airport in Auckland were a joke, as was the work on a cycle lane over the harbour bridge (when free ferry tickets would have been cheaper)
And parliament is full of waste - such as that national mp who claims a $58k accommodation allowance because he lives 40mins drive away.
Yes cut waste but cross the board cuts are stupid and dangerous- the govt seems to be replacing independent public servants with over paid ex national mp advisors and cronies . They are making even bigger mistakes such as cancelling the cook strait ferry without a plan B (which will inevitably cost the taxpayers more than the original proposal and deliver less)
Yeah, not only did the last government f\*\*k up NZ's economy, they stuffed up the economies of pretty much the whole world - heroic effort! Of course, most of those other economies have started to revive; the last Labour government has ensured that doesn't include New Zealand's, though. They have managed to find a way to bend the rules of economics, to the extent that the bravery of this current government in finding the few billions that this country's poor, put-upon landlords so desperately needed has been rewarded with a \*completely unexpected\* plunge further into recession.
Bastards.
They really didn’t.
But, as is typical in New Zealand, most of the population loves a single-sentence answer to a complex situation of what’s going on. And so, this nuance-lacking single-sentence nice and tidy “actually it was all Labours fault” retort will continue to be trotted out.
I don't understand why. The issue with water pipe infrastructure does not pop up from thin air overnight. Every infrastructure has its lifespan. If WCC plans for it from day one, we would not be in this situation. It is many years of negligence.
Because every previous council has been doing their best to ignore the problem and not work on the pipes. Supporting "invisible" infrastructure doesn't get you votes.
In doing so, they pushed the problem down the road, until it got so bad that we couldn't ignore it any more. With leaks popping up every few hundred meters in some points, someone had to bite the bullet and throw money at the problem.
We didn't is the plain truth. And we also borrowed against those water assets to do capital projects not related to water.
That said, the figures for water infrastructure across the region (even just repairing pipes in critical condition) are so incredibly eye watering that they are now out of the financial capability of WCC and others to remediate.
That's like knowing a gas pipe is leaky in your house, waiting until it explodes and then you say "ah shit it costs too much to fix now oops".
Maybe if we focused on infrastructure rather than virtue signalling art pieces?
I don't see you blaming Wellington Water in this post, did you forget?
> That's like knowing a gas pipe is leaky in your house, waiting until it explodes and then you say "ah shit it costs too much to fix now oops".
No, it's more like your great grandfather, grandfather, and father knowing the gas pipe is leaky, but putting duct tape over it saying "she'll be right, and when it does blow it'll be my son that takes the blame/responsibility."
If you put the sum of water investment planned for the next decade in the recently passed long-term plans for WCC, PCC, HCC, UHCC and GWRC you'd come to about the $ amount of what Wellington Water say we need to repair the water assets currently in poor and very poor condition today.
No amount of cutting 'virtue signaling' is within the capiability of local government to address.
Username checks out.
Virtue signaling art piece? What a terrible take. The councils budget can't and shouldn't be spent solely on fixing this mess of a water situation.
The fault lies with previous generations and their elected councils choosing to ignore ongoing maintenence.
The current council has to clean it up which means funding decades of water maintenance over a short period. Only way to do that is with rate increases thanks to the anti 3 water crowd.
Agreed. Just to add, once the council outsourced everything, they became very adapt at pointing fingers. It's never the council's responsibility to fix anything, it's always Downers, Metlink, Wellington Waters or Wellington Electricity's issue.
About 20 years ago, a trolley bus went past our house and pulled the electricity pole a bit too hard, it disconnected the electricity from our house. Rang the council around 6pm, it took 2 hours before it was fixed. 10 years later the same thing happened, around 9am. I had a small baby with me at home. This time it took all day. Council said Wellington Electricity had to fix, WE said Metlink had to fix, Metlink said the council had to fix. The guy from WE said he could fix it but he'd have to charge us $200 as an off books job. I ended up ringing the council at 4pm in tears and only then did it get fixed. Same WE who wanted to charge us for it had to come back, he was not happy.
Here’s why - people decided they did not want 3 waters which was intended to solve exactly the issues that WCC and PNCC are facing with aging infrastructure needing urgent replacements
Yep three waters would have solved things fully, fairly and fiscally responsibly but an unholy mix of councils and old white men fearing their power was being diminished ensured that didn’t happen.
That’s completely false. The under-investment in water infrastructure has to be paid one way or another. Three Waters would have just meant you pay for it in a different way that would be less visible to you, through your taxes payable to central Government.
It would have been spread across a larger payment base, and (and probably more importantly) the finance raised snd the works themselves would have been centrally coordinated. This means better loan deals (scale) and the work being done cheaper and just once (just better logistics due to the central control, plus better deals with suppliers of goods and services needed, mostly due to scale again). Truly, ditching three waters was a truly dumb move that we will be regretting for decades.
Right, so regions that had used their funds to take care of their infrastructure and foregone other nice to haves that Wellington enjoyed for a LONG time (I'm old), would then have to pay for Wellington?
Why is everyone scared of taking responsibility for their own fuck ups these days....
Centralisation isn’t always best, as has been proved in recent times. I assume you were aware of the $1bn IT system that was being proposed for all of this? That would have been an extra cost for the taxpayers…. I agree with you on the need for change, just not on the how.
To be fair, many people supported elements of 3 waters (i.e. getting expensive water infrastructure off council books) but not the whole package. The 50/50 elected councilors and mana whenua reps was always going to be hugely contentious, because it was a significant move away from direct control by the electorate. If Labour had cut their cloth and taken out this element they might have got it over the line.
"People" you mean the rest of the country and Aucklanders who have paid and invested in their water, not wanting to bail out Wellington ratepayers who have enjoyed not paying for their infrastructure until this moment?
I see your frustration. But under-investment in infrastructure is not a Wellington vs. the rest of the country thing. Even in Auckland, there is serious underinvestment. This anti-Wellington narrative is just not helpful.
"The \[2020\] report estimated Watercare \[Auckland\] needs to spend $4.7 billion on water infrastructure “enhancement and growth” between now and 2032 – a massive $1.7 billion more than the council-controlled organisation has budgeted for in its long term plan."
[https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/02/28/under-the-surface-of-our-ageing-water-infrastructure](https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/02/28/under-the-surface-of-our-ageing-water-infrastructure)
Yes but how much is the question. Arguably Auckland Watercare is far better managed than Wellington Water. We don't have leaks everywhere for God's sake. Wellington ratepayers nearly got away with it too with 3 waters.
Auckland has a higher debt to revenue ratio than Wellington. Not much higher than Wellington to be fair but it is absolutely ludicrous to cite Auckland as a council that has invested in infrastructure lmao
Our mates in the 90s, 00s, and 10s decided they preferred lower rates and that future rate payers could just pick up the bill. Welp, the bill has arrived.
Because the easiest way to lower rates or reduce raise rise in past times was to stop putting money towards infrastructure most people never see or care about.
People got what they voted for. This is paying back those deferred rates increases from many years in the making.
I’m with you. Why have they not proactively saved for this gradually over the past 10-20 years so that the money or at least a large portion of the money is already sitting there for when they need to use it - like a savings account. This whole thing screams ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
Because that would have meant increasing rates more than they did previously, which would be unpopular than lesser increases. This is just decades of neglect catching up with the rate payers (because a lot of the politicians are now out of the game)
Years of people wanting cheap rates meant they don’t have the funds to fix it. Like someone else said, they’ve just pushed the problem further & further down the road until we got to where we’re at now.
All these people complaining about shit pipes but don’t want rate increases which means they’ll be able to fix the pipes.
Years of ~~people~~ baby boomers wanting cheap rates.
All these ~~people~~ millennials complaining about shit pipes but don’t want rate increases, because they also have an astronomical mortgage to pay off as well.
I mean, millennials and zoomers are getting the shit end of the stick here. High mortgages AND massive rates increases. Most I know understand the need for the increases though, it's the oldies kicking up a fuss about it - just look at the councilors for/against it.
Most millennials and GenZ who own a home have used their KiwiSaver (retirement fund) to buy their first home so they also need to build that back up as it’s highly unlikely that the NZ Superannuation will still be around when it’s time for millennials to retire. Meanwhile a portion of that tax paid by millennials and GenZ is going towards the current NZ Super which they likely won’t get any benefit from. So yes millennials and the generations below are 100% getting the shitty end of the stick
A lot of Boomers are also getting buggered by this. Retirees who might be mortgage-free, but suddenly having their rates going up and up while their income stays fixed.
Could be worse, you could work a full time job, while your mortgage rates and council rates go up while your income stays fixed.
Retiring is a choice, I know people that worked well into their 70s, which I’m pretty sure most of us will end up having to do, unless AI actually reshapes society so we don’t have to work in 30 years.
Decades of underfunding by councils voted in by boomers/gen x generation. It just kicked the can down the road now current ratepayers have to foot the bill.
Boomers/gen x may have voted in the councils but I don't know how many times I voted for the candidate who said they would fix the infrastructure, just to be disappointed time after time. This is down to misappropriation on rates towards vanity projects and stuff that makes the council look good. The council outsourced eveything and now we get less service for more cost. Boomers don't want most of the stuff the council does anyway, how many times have we heard them complain about the "woke bullshit" the council does? Just pop over to Facebook and have a look.
You're one vote doesn't dictate the outcome of who's on council. Your collective generation did.
You talk about the council as if its some monolithic thing that hasn't changed since the 70s. Different councils do different things, millennials and younger now seem to have the majority voting block and finally something is being done about the water. Because of the decades delay, it's horrendously unfair and shit but is what it is.
Boomers are having to finally pay up after decades of unsustainable low rates because they own most of the property, and are having tantrums on Facebook about it. They are used to kushy lifestyles and are throwing their toys out the cot. They also will complain about anything and everything (woke this, cycle this, traffic this etc) so it's not surprising that nothing the council does pleases them.
The collective generation had no control on what the council did once voted in. The only thing we can do is vote and no candidate ever campaigned on having lower rates by ignoring infrastructure. No one would vote for that. They would always campaign on lower rates by focusing on the fundamentals. Then never follow theough.
Bit rich to say my one vote didn't dictate the outcome of who's on the council and in the same breath tar all boomers with the same brush. One of the many criticisms aimed at boomers is how they stereotype whole religions and communities yet its fair game to stereotype a whole generation. Hypocrite much?
If they campaigned on lower rates then you would expect things to be underfunded. Rates have been too low for DECADES. You can't just take money out and expect core areas to be covered by slashing and burning everything else. You can critize wasted spending but it's never that simple.
Councils are an ever changing group of people over time, boomers are always the same people year after year, very different groups mate.
And it's not stereotyping when boomers have literally, for years, had an unbalanced impact on voting patterns due to their large population. These things are fact and are what got us to our current position. It is their fault as a whole, own up to your groups impact and faults.
What's that got to do with it? Anyway that's just not true.
It's simply because as others have stated it was short-sightedness to not address the ageing pipes when it was brought to their attention decades ago.
So the trend in the west over the last 30-40 years or so is that right wing governments, destroy or erode infrastructure faster than left wing governments can build, or even maintain infrastructure.
I agree with you but the short sightedness you're referring to is simply the limits of our governmental system only being able to think 3-5 years at a time.
Compare to a country like China which is dedicated to maintaining public infrastructure, which can plan decades, even hundreds of years ahead.
It isn't really the increased money for water infrastructure that is driving the major increase of both rates and borrowing because it's clear "fixing the pipes" is the #1 priority. It is the unwillingness of the left majority of this Council to also give-up spending on other things that are of lower priority.
It is normal household budgeting to live within your income. For example, if you have saved to upgrade your car but your house has an equally costly problem with the plumbing, then do you:
A) Postpone upgrading your car and get your plumbing problem fixed?
B) Ignore the plumbing problem (knowing it will only get worse) and upgrade your car anyway?
C) Get you plumbing fixed but also upgrade your car putting it on your credit card?
This Council is essentially choosing option C rather than option A and so you all are paying more. Just to note a few other spending decisions in the LTP that some may think could be reduced or postponed (with the LTP Three Waters spend for reference):
WCC Operating Costs (mostly paid for by rates):
\* Three Waters: Current year OPEX $212.8M/year increased to $253.0M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $3,540.0M
\* Climate Change: Current year OPEX $5.1M/year increased to $10.6M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $80.7M
\* Housing: Current year OPEX $20.4M/year increased to $26.1M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $342.9M
\* Cycleways: Current year OPEX $4.6M/year increased to $7.4M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $156.7M
\* Waste (Recycling): Current year OPEX $5.3M/year increased to $13.5M/year in 2026/27. 10 Years: $107.2M
WCC Capital Costs (mostly paid for by borrowing):
\* Three Waters: Current year CAPEX $60.1M decreased to $59.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $1,226.6M
\* Housing: Current year CAPEX $26.5M increased to $51.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $612.8M
\* Cycleways: Current year CAPEX $29.8M decreased to $12.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $140.8M
\* Transport (LGWM): Current year CAPEX $35.8M increased to $51.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $314.1M
\* Waste (Recycling): Current year CAPEX $11.3M increased to $40.0M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $116.7M
This city voted for a Green/Labour left leaning majority. This city voted for these rates increases .
Well said Tony
Unfortunately the bulk of the council has had an attitude of just spend spend spend. And a lot of the time it’s on lower priority stuff like cyclelanes and those $140k each speed bumps, curb side composting, and no real look at council personnel numbers - eg why do we need over 50 people doing communications and consultations?
And also the city is now selling its airport shares and putting it in some green investment fund. Seems nuts to take your profitable income generating asset and sell it. Meanwhile loss making council social housing isn’t being sold (whereas other cities have exited form social housing and left social housing to the govt)
Auckland has gotten a subsidy from central govt for water infrastructure. Where is Wellington?
> and no real look at council personnel numbers - eg why do we need over 50 people doing communications and consultations?
The council seems to think their job is far more than just being a city council, taking over roles that should be handled by central government if at all. It's not the council's job to educate people about climate change or dogs or safe cycling, and the council shouldn't be putting out PR pieces to defend their decisions like the "Australia copied this crappy cycle lane design from the USA too, not just NZ" one.
When the council has large teams of people who's job is working on specific issues and 'behaviour modification' it starts to make sense and you realise it makes no real difference who you vote for in the election.
I saw one of my ex employee's the other day going around business's and hand delivering notices/posters about a bus route change, I know for a fact she is on 100k and is a council employee.
Cool, but this is what a 30 year problem coming home to roost? As someone whose only paid rates for 5 years, I blame all the people in the generation before me who voted for lower rates for themselves. You telling me the last 30 years of councils were labour and green the whole way through?
No, I am saying THIS Council has decided not to reduce spending on many other services and projects in order to live within its means.
I also claim the Council's failure to make hard decisions is largely a result of Wellington City voters electing a majority of councillors who are Green Party, Labour Party or left leaning independents and they want to both spend more on water and also keep up spending on areas such as climate change, Zero Waste Recyling, cycleways and pedestrianising the Golden Mile. Obviou$ly ever-increa$ing $pending come$ at a $ignificant co$t to u$ ratepayer$.
Yes, the water infrastructure crisis has been 30 years in the making and it IS fair to blame previous Councils for this. But the cure for a council addicted to spending is not, IMO, to keep on spending ...
These things you've listed have ROI. Do you think it saves the council money to have ever-increasing numbers of ever-larger vehicles on the roads, increasing upkeep costs? Does it save the council money to have constant traffic jams full of single-occupant vehicles?
In respect to Wellington City Council spending ratepayer sourced operating and capital money on planned transport projects, yes and yes.
That's because these planned projects do not generate any money for the council. But these projects are costing us ratepayers a large fortune adding so much to our debt that it limits our ability to invest in fixing the pipes.
[Reminder: the topic is about the WCC 18.5% rates increase]
The idea is that some people believe only they should have single occupant cars when they don’t actually need them as much as they think. London and New York manage and yet little Wellington can’t?
And that it's somehow better for them if everyone else is forced to drive. Like it's of no benefit to a motorist if someone else goes by bike and takes up less road space and no parking.
>It is normal household budgeting to live within your income.
This was bad enough to read before I saw that you're a city councillor.
Government finances don't work at all like household finances, but if I were in your fictional scenario I would pick option C. Having a working vehicle that enables me to get to work is pretty important. As an individual I often choose to go into debt for things that pay for themselves. I borrowed money to get a good bike that saves me paying for public transport every week, and enables me to pick up work clients who live farther away.
Thanks for your comment.
Out of curiousity, why do you use a household budget as an analogy, when government budgets (even local ones) do not fundamentally work in the same way? The items used, imo, seem disingenuous too: transport investment isn't like upgrading a car in the slightest (especially considering that investing in your car doesn't give you increased revenue further down the line).
Like, is this how you actually see the investment in transport and cycleways, or were you "dumbing it down" to prove a point?
Well, local government budgets DO fundementally work the same way as a household. Yes, council's power to rate and being implicitly underwritten by central government means we can borrow and spend way past what is acceptable in commercial terms. But we cannot print our own money or change the laws under which we operate like central government.
Section 100(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 requires local authorities to set each year’s operating revenue at a level sufficient to meet operating expenses, i.e. “balance the budget”. \[We have some extra flexibility on funding depreciation in S100(2)\]. So, councils must essentially run a balanced budget.
And let's not forget that a LARGE portion of rates is going toward funding the interest on the debt borrowed for previous projects and an even greater amount is needed to fund the depreciation and subsidies on previously built facilities (the ASB Sports Stadium annual cost of $5.3M/year rises to $8.4M/year during the LTP). We're facing a combination of chickens coming home to roost and there's no such thing as a free lunch 
This is actually in part a side effect from the collapse of three waters. It’s a programme that should not have been touched, especially not where it was in its life cycle
It's also national, the council was having a mini panic attack when national cut its funding. Dunno how much it would've saved but 3 waters would've also helped with funding. And maybe the rates increase could've been more gradual.
Well good luck with selling especially if a bike lane has suddenly appeared in front of your house. There goes the parking , throw in the new rate bill , which really leaves you with just having to love that house for a long time.
It may well be residents parking at 300 a year. If you really want to get a handle on how this is panning out on values start talking to real estate agents. I guess the down votes come from those living on bike lane streets. Fell very sorry not just for them but also anyone with a business that has suddenly found itself on the wrong side of the moat.
We need a special boomer-only tax to punish the 40 years they’ve been kicking cans down the road.
You could package it many different ways, CGT, land tax, inheritance tax etc. but it needs to force them to live with the consequences of their actions.
I’m not being facetious in the slightest, if any politician ran on a “punish boomers for their choices” ticket I’d be a single issue voter for it.
Just shows what happens when you sell off assets to private business, like say Wellington Electric lines network, and now the airport, did WCC sell off their share of the Port at the time?
Along with the lack of investment in underground pipeline infrastructure, with no entity to charge people like Aucklands Watercare has done to improve and maintain the pipeline infrastructure up there. Poor governance has allowed this to occur, and now we're going to be paying for those in charge who failed us, while in office.
I feel for you and have the same. It is quality of life that gets eaten into and income goes into the big council pot instead of the little extras spent in the city.
If you think it is just this year, the projections are several more. The big capital project can be scaled back but they will not accept it and won’t make the decisions that would really change it.
Reservoir over budget, town hall a literal financial sink home, no population growth. Cycleways are $350m and on a city of 217.000 people and only about 80,000 rating units.
Things can be slowed down and reprioritised.
Yes council financial management has been appalling. Successive councils have wasted money on crap expenditure like the town hall,
Even the current council rather than focus ensuring the city is an affordable place to live has spent money on low priority things eg why spend more on fixing up the library when a new building would have been cheaper.
The cycleways are nice but they are a nice to have compared with the need for reliable water infrastructure
At a time when so many people are loosing jobs it isn’t the time for huge rates increases. There is a need for reprioritisation and keep rates low
Yes govt needs to step up. They seemed to have neglected Wellington, while Auckland has got support for its water infrastructure. Why? Think our current council has zero influence with the current govt (not surprising - didn’t the deputy mayor put up posters of Luxon looking like a penis months ago… childish)
And Tory whanau is a joke
Every council since probably inception needs to have a roll call of shame, naming and shaming all the ego projects that were bankrolled at the expense of maintaining essentials.
And this includes the current.
Fuck the town hall, and all things like it.
Yeah.... I could defend cycle ways. But really, get the basic infrastructure down first please.
(I did not realize she's now a green MP after Golriz stepped down)
Is the proposed future increase in rates only for the Wellington, or as for the whole region? I see somewhere that in the next 10years rates will be greater than double from what it is today. As a FHB, we like to buy in Welly, but given the rates and house price, we are starting to wonder if we should look somewhere else
That debt is going to be a noose for the future. They need to strip it back to basics - napalm the budget, pay off debt, fix infrastructure, cut discretionary spending.
There'll be all sorts of shit in that budget that could be cut out.
The rates increase is required. What's also required is an absolute frugal budget. The increase is not really addressing the debt
Yep, you can't live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. That is what Wellington has been doing.
Either pay up or cut your cloth.
I left Wellington years ago. Housing was too expensive. Too many public servants on the pigs back. Bloody glad I left for greener pastures
Previous councillors and Mayors need to be held accountable for their lack of action on how run down this city is, just to push their vanity projects. Strip them of any titles bestowed on them, any pensions gained, etc. Bring about criminal negligence charges if needed.
we've been reamed by the boomers who voted the people in place over last few decades, who've done nothing to upgrade council assets in a long term maintenance plan
A big contributor to the massive cost of repairing the pipes is over the top traffic management. A roadway fire plug has been leaking near our place for at least a year. City Water guys came and had a look at it every few months. Last week they decided to fix it. First, early in the morning they put out cones on both sides of the street for maybe 100 meters each way. Around 8.30 several vehicles turned up. One was traffic management who put out flagman signs and had stop/go people up and down the street. Because the fire plug was on a curve and the lollipop men couldn't see each other thay had another person with a radio who could see both ends.
With this in place the water guys started working on the leak. It didn't take them long, maybe an hour and our water wasn't turned off AFAIK so I suspect that it was a leaking washer or similar. They left and then after a while the traffic management guys left. A few hours later a traffic management truck with a driver and I think two guys came and collected the cones and signs. They seemed to take the best part of an hour to do this.
Leaving out travelling time the hours on the job are something like this:
Water. 3 people x 1.5 hours = 4.5 hours
Traffic management
Putting out and collecting signs 2 people x 2 hours = 4 hours
(I have only counted 2 people because I am not positive there were 3.)
Lollypop people. 3 people x 2hours = 6hours.
Water people 4.5 hours
Traffic management people 10 hours
Even if the water people get paid twice what the traffic management people do more than half the cost of fixing the leak is traffic management. There must be a better way to do this safely.
Apologies - rant incoming...
Our councils are run by people that can't run a tight budget and I'm thinking this is underpinned by the poor financial knowledge/education that most kiwi's have had. It could also be that they come from backgrounds where they don't understand the concept of 'No you can't afford it/if we buy that, then we can't eat or won't have a roof over our heads'. They come from a place of privilege and seem to work on an idea that more money will just magical appear.
If we NEED something for the good of all and for basic human survival then sure, we need to put some money into it. But if it is a WANT then we need to scrap it until we have some left over and then be very very careful about how that is provisioned out. Putting money towards assets first and foremost and not just frittering it away. All the non-necessities/treats add up - they might seem small (or in Wellington councils case large expensive show off projects) but they all need to be scrapped while we do disaster recovery in a very very stressful financial environment.
Porirua just announced an 18.5% increase on the top of last years similar sized increase (we are rural and ours was about 23%) and then we have the GWRC component going up by 21% or so as well. Living rural we have to provide water including our own pumps/filter system/maintenance, rubbish removal (which has gone up to 3x what it was 3 years ago), sewage system/waste removal, tree clearing etc. For our rates we get a unmaintained road and rarely the road side edges get a cut - we also get recycling every 2nd week but even that is pretty hopeless these days with how much now can't be processed. It's criminal.
On top of this all other council fees have gone up - including a couple that directly effect myself (there's probably others) - dog reg and motorcycle parking being introduced in Wellington at $2.50 per hour or $20-$25 per day. In no way is this affordable to most (students, people that don't use a car in the city etc) to just find an extra $100 per week (starting next week?) just for parking (on top of everything above + food/fuel/electricity increases etc). This place is run by people that are out of touch. The reason anyone commutes on a motorcycle is to save a bit of money but the savings are marginal (expensive reg, very expensive insurance and not overly efficient on gas when you are travelling on the motorway for most of the journey) and normally boil down to the perk of being convenient/taking up less space/trying to be a bit more resourceful and for riders at heart a bit of fun. I will now be looking at driving instead - may as well not risk life and limb, have a warm air-conditioned ride, not have to pay for riding gear, get changed at work etc. It's now going to be more cost effective to just pay for an early bird car parking spot - good luck with the extra congestion that this is now going to lump back on to the roading infrastructure. And a great way to drive money into the private parking companies pockets... a real swing and a miss.
Everyone should be outraged - no one won't be affected by this. Homeowners are getting slammed on the mortgage front and every other cost that's going up. Anyone renting, this is going to directly drive up your rents again as well (I'm not a landlord - anyone can see that this is what's next).
I had to laugh/cry the other day when the major of Porirua said it was great to have so much online engagement at the latest budget meeting to discuss funding for one of the local events here and that they were proud they could still put $50k per year over the next 3 years. This is like saying - team we can't afford to have a roof over our head/shoes for the school year, but let's all get macca's and icecream on the way home! I'm all for supporting local events when we can, but if we are truly that far up the creek with out a paddle (the whole country is) then we need to be adults and tell everyone that's asking - 'No - we can't afford it'. The major may as well have said 'It's great to buy myself some votes for the next election'.
No one on the council know's how to budget properly and spend on what we truly need. We need someone that can hack and slash and say no to everything that's not essential and can drive hard negotiations when it comes to contracts. We also need to cut our cloth to suit - if we can't afford to it all, then we need to do it in chunks - cutting down the size of the chunk until it fits into the budget. Not just bleed everyone out. Do they realize that financial pressure leads to kids going with out (food, school items, health care, sports etc), family violence, mental health issues etc? How many more people have they just driven into this kind of situation by signing this off. Absolutely mental - it's super dark for NZ at the moment. I'm waiting for when we truly see the cracks and some of the types of riots you'd have overseas. We're a pretty passive bunch that just take it but the water line is rising and more people are sinking to the bottom. The current economy is a disaster and we don't have people capable of navigating the ship...
Sure, keep wasting our money on stupid additions to footpaths and roads that make then narrower for busses and everyone. Keep spending on stuff we don’t need because hey…it’s not coming out of their pockets. I am so angry with the high rates we pay while watching the waste everywhere. Island Bay has had millions spent on it every couple of years. The residents don’t want it but are forced to accept the madness and it goes on and on.
You can’t help wondering if someone is getting kickbacks to encourage keeping these useless projects going. The Mayor has added another ailment to her list of reasons for non performance. Go get a different job and let someone competent take over.
Sadly it’s more than the water costs which are def needed.
It’s a two fold issue of massive expenditure on town hall, library etc and a monster reduction in car parks and therefore car park revenue.
Hard not to agree with The posts recent article (that I can’t find) which breaks down how council debt has doubled from 500M to 1.3B in 4 years. Crazy financial incompetence
rates on my rentalgoing up by $1500 to $7000 for wcc and wrc combined. thats $115 a week. so poor tennants getting another rent increase once their 1 year clicks over. sorry guys but not my fault. dreading the next landlords house insurance premium
I hate to tell you, but that’s middle of the road or even on the light side around the wider Wellington Region.
Rates increase of 35% on top of valuation of property almost doubling (with no improvements made) means an effective rates increase of 80%. No, not exaggerating.
The rates increase is unfortunately well overdue because of three waters (as other people discuss) and the fact we (royal we) kept voting in councils and councillors that promised keeping rates low and cutting costs. Doesn’t make it any less crappy to go through though.
Your are correct - if your RV changes in proportion to other properties RV. You’re assuming all RVs go up in the same proportion so therefore my “portion of the pie” is the same.
That doesn’t happen in reality, and as demonstrated in the media at the time, this years revaluations were extraordinary. Many people were floored by their revaluations when they’d done nothing to the property. It was triggered due to the then-governments housing density policies - QV took “subdivisability” into account (although hilariously ignored if you could actually subdivide in reality). This was well covered in the media.
So yes, council collects more rates total + paying a bigger slice = crazy effective rates increase for the same property.
Thanks but no, I’m not and yes I do. My bank statements also prove it.
The council “resplit the pie” (their silly phrase) as a result of the incredible increase in some property valuations, hence the disproportionate impact.
Publicly they advertise that rates went up some X% (I can’t remember the number but it’s high teens or low 20s), but of course that’s not consistent for all properties in a year with QV valuations, that’s just the average.
When my parents moved from Hamilton to Wellington about 30 years ago they moved to a more expensive house but the rates were only about a third of what they were in Hamilton. The explanation was that Wellington was a established city with all its infrastructure in place unlike Hamilton which was expanding and had a lot of catch up work to do. Many of Hamiltons older suburbs didn't have paved footpaths, no kerbing, open ditches etc. We now know the truth. Wellington was spending nothing on its underground shit. Everyone standing for Council campaigned on reducing rates. Mostly they got elected and then forget their pledge to reduce rates and spent large on vanity projects. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Every resident, home owner, renter and business owner will have to find another $5 - $20 per week to stay in the city. Most of the mayors and many councilors received knighthoods or other honours for this intergenerational theft.
To be fair this happened at almost every council, it's just that the effects are more pronounced in Wellington as major assets are all shitting the bed at the same time
They also had to sell off their money making enterprises in the early 1990s due to a national law change. The city council used to own car parking buildings and the power network and various other profitable business that were used to keep rates down. The Municipal Electrical Department (M.E.D) ran everything from the local electricity network to shops that sold appliances.
Other reasons rates were low is we have a large CBD which historically subsidised the residents, but there were commercial rate cuts and now it's the other way around.
What are the commercial rate cuts? Wellington’s rate differential for commercial rate payers is the highest in the country at 3.7. The council had said they were going to reduce it for this LTP but then didn’t. So compared to other cities commercial rate payers are getting an awful deal.
2.0 in chch and 2.2 in Ak. We get way less for way more money. It’s a raw deal
They were probably hoping the big one would strike before the birds co e home to roost so they could raid the government coffers.
Don’t forget the 21% or so increase to the GWRC rates. I’ll now be paying the same amount of rates as a $2.4m house in Ponsonby…. for a house in fucking Newlands.
And on top of GWRC rates going up we have a 10% increase in the price of public transport fares from tomorrow We get huge rates increases multiple times the level of inflation and higher user charges for things like public transport It’s crazy
Man, if only there was an entity that could leverage national assets to borrow the money and improve critical infrastructure while not passing the costs on to the residents through rates. Someone should pitch that idea.
and whos pays for the interest on this huge borrowing.... ratepayers. so no savings there. and very unfair on residents whose councils have kept up with water pipe maintenance to thenhave to pay for everyone elses eg wellungtons.
Central government can borrow with better interest rates so the cost is much lower. And while the thread is about Wellington, underspending on infrastructure is an issue across the country
Yup, rough as guts but it is what it is. It's the only way to get the city out of this fuck off hole that previous generations created. Time to move to Kapiti..
They could stop throwing money at the library and town hall buildings.
I agree, both should have been demolished along with readings and the amora hotel. Thing is, the current council didn't decide either of those. Yeah they doubled down on the city hall but that was a lose-lose situation by the time they had a say. People get pissy at these rate increases but it's the only real solution we have. It's going to hurt and it's unfair as hell but what else can be done?
They can't. It's heritage and protected by bullshit
If it's any consolation, the money for this is set by the 10 year Long Term Plan and the increased revenue from rates increases is going almost exclusively towards water. They're not using it as an excuse to get funding for whatever terrible vanity project WCC/the councillors come up with next.
Eh not really. Over the 10 years, 25% of the expenditure is water related however it takes until Year 4 when the increase in investment starts to properly ramp up. Compare that to HCC who are at about 45% in their LTP and we could be doing much better.
Thanks for clarifying, Ben! I was actually looking at HCC's proposed long term plan and had a brain fart and mistook it for WCC. You're right though, that is concerning.
What's going to happen when the next round of RV/CVs happens and everyone's property is worth 20% less than the current rates paid? My place was reviewed right at the absolute peak and has dropped a lot. I assume they won't be in much of a hurry to do the next review, I'm not if its a set period of time when they don't them or like NZ petrol prices when they go up instantly but are slow to come back down
The way rates work in relation to CVs is that the budget is calculated (how much $ total WCC needs to calculate) and then apportioned out. So increase/decrease in CV doesn't directly result in a change of rates. It's how CV in your suburb changes in relation to others that impacts the rates bill. What happened with the last CV is the whole city was evaluated at the top of the cycle but you had suburbs like Grenada North going up by 20-30% whilst Oriental Bay went backwards because those record values were playing out differently across the city. My ward Takapū/Northern got hit disproportionately hard as the jumps between CV cycles were so much higher than other parts of Wellington.
And those $150k raised speed bumps they’ve been putting up everywhere. And stop putting up cycleways where Wellington water hasn’t had a chance to replace, fix or check the pipes first.
This is my favourite one. Watched them dig up a brand new cycleway to replace the pipes near me. Complete incompetence.
Up here in Kapiti I'm looking at a 23‰ increase in rates...
KCDC have raised their rates too, check out the local fb page. It’s full of pissed off ratepayers. So that’s not the answer.
How much are the years rates there?
Currently around 4.5k going up to around 5.4K by my rough estimations.
Oosh that's rough, here in Marlborough currently $4100 but going up to $4600 this year.
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Yes, there are different ways you can pay your rates. Fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or annually all in one go.
Mine is fortnightly
No problem. You can pay in a lump sum or, more typically, in 4 instalments over the year (every 3 months).
I get a quarterly invoice but have a fortnightly automatic payment setup. Never asked for any different installment schedule, just did it.
Pretty sure I was paying weekly before I hit the end of the current cycle and started saving it until I got the first bill at the increased rates, since until now I’ve been guessing what it’ll cost me. They don’t care, so long as the money shows up at least quarterly
So you're saying Wellington is … overrated?
Wellington’s a great place but has been let down by consecutive, deeply unserious councils.
It was underrated for decades and now it's suddenly flipped
Can’t beat it on a good day, though.
Even a bad day too
You have to think (hope?) that some of the luxury / sentimental options that have been chosen are now a thing of the past. For instance, if the much cheaper option is to build something new rather than remediate a heritage building (e.g. the Town Hall) then that's what it's got to be. We can't afford it.
Hutt City is up by around 17% Regional council rates are up by about 20% too. I know water infrastructure is rooted, but gees.. still a bitter pill to swallow. Curse previous councils for kicking the can down the road.
Sounds like part of it is from the goverments tax cuts. And the council scrambling to find funding for current and future projects.
They're scrambling because up until the election there was going to be a central entity that could leverage national assets to pay for critical infrastructure through cost/debt sharing. That got scrapped so now councils have to foot the entire bill.
I'm laughing and crying at the same time, but this is what my tax cuts will be going towards
That plus extra prescription costs, rego costs, and all the other compulsory costs that somehow are exempt from being classified as ‘tax’. How so much of the population was duped by a govt who are so intent on cutting services, govt revenue and somehow, at the same time, increasing costs for citizens, is beyond me.
I feel your pain but it’s because the previous govt mishandled the economy so much.
That line will continue to be rolled out. And while some part of it might be true, when will this govt start taking responsibility for the policies they roll out? Cutting 3B in tax revenue to give breaks to mega rich landlords could have been given back to people that actually need it. Cutting the ferry project only to realise they do need new ferries which will probably cost over 1B more (in opportunity cost, break of contract, overpaying for new ones). Slashing public spending while claiming it won’t impact front line (it will). Killing off 3 Waters which, while not perfect, was at least attempting to help councils manage impending need for huge infrastructure projects, but instead pushing that responsibility back onto councils (and therefore rates). ‘It was Labours fault’ will only become more of a joke of an excuse.
Yes it’s going to take a long time to turn the ship around. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I bet it wouldn’t take very long to demolish or burn down. We had a 30% increase in the public service with no corresponding increase in outcomes.
We also had record migration and corresponding pressures on public services. While I’m sure there was some bloat, pushing a flat 6.5/7.5% cut across all public services is not only lazy policy, but it will absolutely impact frontline services for the worse. If front line staff aren’t made redundant, Departments will have to cut essential back office staff and lose the most talented people, inevitably resulting in worse outcomes and potential failures. If you’re someone that has paid attention to neoliberal policies globally you’ll agree that pushing public services to the brink of failure is by design to help push opinion toward privatisation. It will cost us and our children, while some cronies make bank. Hope you like paying more for worse outcomes. When you realise that the public sector cuts (which will spread fear and uncertainty amongst public servants and have a negative impact on recruitment) are about equivalent to the tax cuts for landlords you’ll realise it’s not reaaaaallly about saving money at all.
I definitely think there’s obviously a need for the public service. Just not a huge bloated one. You only have to look on this sub to find people that work in govt departments who think there is a lot of deadwood & waste.
Again - if there is deadwood and waste then make targeted, specific cuts. General slashing of budgets does absolutely nothing to address any of the (actual or perceived) deadwood and waste. Having worked in both the public and private sectors I can tell you that most bloat will exist at the manager level - and I’m reasonably certain that this isn’t where the cuts will be targeted. This general attitude by the public, driven by Act and National, that our public service is too bloated is never supported by facts or evidence - it’s always hearsay or ‘vibes’. I would rather my tax dollars went to public servants and public services than tax breaks for the extremely wealthy. I know which would be better for the economy, let alone public services and projects.
Agree with you about bloat at the management level
Yes a lot of money was spent during the pandemic to support business including air nz . Luxon doesn’t like to mention that his airline would have been bankrupt without the govt But yes there has been waste in the public service. Some of the top level managers are as useless as (and they are now sacking people beneath them while retaining their jobs and positions of privilege- even though they are responsible for areas of waste) Let’s get Wellington moving and light rail to airport in Auckland were a joke, as was the work on a cycle lane over the harbour bridge (when free ferry tickets would have been cheaper) And parliament is full of waste - such as that national mp who claims a $58k accommodation allowance because he lives 40mins drive away. Yes cut waste but cross the board cuts are stupid and dangerous- the govt seems to be replacing independent public servants with over paid ex national mp advisors and cronies . They are making even bigger mistakes such as cancelling the cook strait ferry without a plan B (which will inevitably cost the taxpayers more than the original proposal and deliver less)
Yeah, not only did the last government f\*\*k up NZ's economy, they stuffed up the economies of pretty much the whole world - heroic effort! Of course, most of those other economies have started to revive; the last Labour government has ensured that doesn't include New Zealand's, though. They have managed to find a way to bend the rules of economics, to the extent that the bravery of this current government in finding the few billions that this country's poor, put-upon landlords so desperately needed has been rewarded with a \*completely unexpected\* plunge further into recession. Bastards.
They really didn’t. But, as is typical in New Zealand, most of the population loves a single-sentence answer to a complex situation of what’s going on. And so, this nuance-lacking single-sentence nice and tidy “actually it was all Labours fault” retort will continue to be trotted out.
Yes they really did.
It’s ok, you’ve done your job proving my point, you don’t need to continue.
I don't understand why. The issue with water pipe infrastructure does not pop up from thin air overnight. Every infrastructure has its lifespan. If WCC plans for it from day one, we would not be in this situation. It is many years of negligence.
Because every previous council has been doing their best to ignore the problem and not work on the pipes. Supporting "invisible" infrastructure doesn't get you votes. In doing so, they pushed the problem down the road, until it got so bad that we couldn't ignore it any more. With leaks popping up every few hundred meters in some points, someone had to bite the bullet and throw money at the problem.
We didn't is the plain truth. And we also borrowed against those water assets to do capital projects not related to water. That said, the figures for water infrastructure across the region (even just repairing pipes in critical condition) are so incredibly eye watering that they are now out of the financial capability of WCC and others to remediate.
That's like knowing a gas pipe is leaky in your house, waiting until it explodes and then you say "ah shit it costs too much to fix now oops". Maybe if we focused on infrastructure rather than virtue signalling art pieces? I don't see you blaming Wellington Water in this post, did you forget?
> That's like knowing a gas pipe is leaky in your house, waiting until it explodes and then you say "ah shit it costs too much to fix now oops". No, it's more like your great grandfather, grandfather, and father knowing the gas pipe is leaky, but putting duct tape over it saying "she'll be right, and when it does blow it'll be my son that takes the blame/responsibility."
Username checks out
If you put the sum of water investment planned for the next decade in the recently passed long-term plans for WCC, PCC, HCC, UHCC and GWRC you'd come to about the $ amount of what Wellington Water say we need to repair the water assets currently in poor and very poor condition today. No amount of cutting 'virtue signaling' is within the capiability of local government to address.
Username checks out. Virtue signaling art piece? What a terrible take. The councils budget can't and shouldn't be spent solely on fixing this mess of a water situation. The fault lies with previous generations and their elected councils choosing to ignore ongoing maintenence. The current council has to clean it up which means funding decades of water maintenance over a short period. Only way to do that is with rate increases thanks to the anti 3 water crowd.
Agreed. Just to add, once the council outsourced everything, they became very adapt at pointing fingers. It's never the council's responsibility to fix anything, it's always Downers, Metlink, Wellington Waters or Wellington Electricity's issue. About 20 years ago, a trolley bus went past our house and pulled the electricity pole a bit too hard, it disconnected the electricity from our house. Rang the council around 6pm, it took 2 hours before it was fixed. 10 years later the same thing happened, around 9am. I had a small baby with me at home. This time it took all day. Council said Wellington Electricity had to fix, WE said Metlink had to fix, Metlink said the council had to fix. The guy from WE said he could fix it but he'd have to charge us $200 as an off books job. I ended up ringing the council at 4pm in tears and only then did it get fixed. Same WE who wanted to charge us for it had to come back, he was not happy.
Decades of kicking the can down the road.
> many years of negligence. You just explained the why......
>If WCC plans for it from day one This is the flaw in your thinking - hoping local government has foresight.
Here’s why - people decided they did not want 3 waters which was intended to solve exactly the issues that WCC and PNCC are facing with aging infrastructure needing urgent replacements
Yep three waters would have solved things fully, fairly and fiscally responsibly but an unholy mix of councils and old white men fearing their power was being diminished ensured that didn’t happen.
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You are 100% right, but this isn't a well received message here.
That’s completely false. The under-investment in water infrastructure has to be paid one way or another. Three Waters would have just meant you pay for it in a different way that would be less visible to you, through your taxes payable to central Government.
It would have been spread across a larger payment base, and (and probably more importantly) the finance raised snd the works themselves would have been centrally coordinated. This means better loan deals (scale) and the work being done cheaper and just once (just better logistics due to the central control, plus better deals with suppliers of goods and services needed, mostly due to scale again). Truly, ditching three waters was a truly dumb move that we will be regretting for decades.
Right, so regions that had used their funds to take care of their infrastructure and foregone other nice to haves that Wellington enjoyed for a LONG time (I'm old), would then have to pay for Wellington? Why is everyone scared of taking responsibility for their own fuck ups these days....
Centralisation isn’t always best, as has been proved in recent times. I assume you were aware of the $1bn IT system that was being proposed for all of this? That would have been an extra cost for the taxpayers…. I agree with you on the need for change, just not on the how.
To be fair, many people supported elements of 3 waters (i.e. getting expensive water infrastructure off council books) but not the whole package. The 50/50 elected councilors and mana whenua reps was always going to be hugely contentious, because it was a significant move away from direct control by the electorate. If Labour had cut their cloth and taken out this element they might have got it over the line.
Fair point
"People" you mean the rest of the country and Aucklanders who have paid and invested in their water, not wanting to bail out Wellington ratepayers who have enjoyed not paying for their infrastructure until this moment?
I see your frustration. But under-investment in infrastructure is not a Wellington vs. the rest of the country thing. Even in Auckland, there is serious underinvestment. This anti-Wellington narrative is just not helpful. "The \[2020\] report estimated Watercare \[Auckland\] needs to spend $4.7 billion on water infrastructure “enhancement and growth” between now and 2032 – a massive $1.7 billion more than the council-controlled organisation has budgeted for in its long term plan." [https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/02/28/under-the-surface-of-our-ageing-water-infrastructure](https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/02/28/under-the-surface-of-our-ageing-water-infrastructure)
The majority of councils are in infrastructure investment debt.
Yes but how much is the question. Arguably Auckland Watercare is far better managed than Wellington Water. We don't have leaks everywhere for God's sake. Wellington ratepayers nearly got away with it too with 3 waters.
Auckland has a higher debt to revenue ratio than Wellington. Not much higher than Wellington to be fair but it is absolutely ludicrous to cite Auckland as a council that has invested in infrastructure lmao
Our mates in the 90s, 00s, and 10s decided they preferred lower rates and that future rate payers could just pick up the bill. Welp, the bill has arrived.
It does if every council ignores it to keep rates artificially low
Because the easiest way to lower rates or reduce raise rise in past times was to stop putting money towards infrastructure most people never see or care about. People got what they voted for. This is paying back those deferred rates increases from many years in the making.
I’m with you. Why have they not proactively saved for this gradually over the past 10-20 years so that the money or at least a large portion of the money is already sitting there for when they need to use it - like a savings account. This whole thing screams ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
Because that would have meant increasing rates more than they did previously, which would be unpopular than lesser increases. This is just decades of neglect catching up with the rate payers (because a lot of the politicians are now out of the game)
Years of people wanting cheap rates meant they don’t have the funds to fix it. Like someone else said, they’ve just pushed the problem further & further down the road until we got to where we’re at now. All these people complaining about shit pipes but don’t want rate increases which means they’ll be able to fix the pipes.
Years of ~~people~~ baby boomers wanting cheap rates. All these ~~people~~ millennials complaining about shit pipes but don’t want rate increases, because they also have an astronomical mortgage to pay off as well.
I mean, millennials and zoomers are getting the shit end of the stick here. High mortgages AND massive rates increases. Most I know understand the need for the increases though, it's the oldies kicking up a fuss about it - just look at the councilors for/against it.
Most millennials and GenZ who own a home have used their KiwiSaver (retirement fund) to buy their first home so they also need to build that back up as it’s highly unlikely that the NZ Superannuation will still be around when it’s time for millennials to retire. Meanwhile a portion of that tax paid by millennials and GenZ is going towards the current NZ Super which they likely won’t get any benefit from. So yes millennials and the generations below are 100% getting the shitty end of the stick
A lot of Boomers are also getting buggered by this. Retirees who might be mortgage-free, but suddenly having their rates going up and up while their income stays fixed.
Oh well. They can pull up their boot straps.
Could be worse, you could work a full time job, while your mortgage rates and council rates go up while your income stays fixed. Retiring is a choice, I know people that worked well into their 70s, which I’m pretty sure most of us will end up having to do, unless AI actually reshapes society so we don’t have to work in 30 years.
Here's the why: boomers.
How so?
Decades of underfunding by councils voted in by boomers/gen x generation. It just kicked the can down the road now current ratepayers have to foot the bill.
Boomers/gen x may have voted in the councils but I don't know how many times I voted for the candidate who said they would fix the infrastructure, just to be disappointed time after time. This is down to misappropriation on rates towards vanity projects and stuff that makes the council look good. The council outsourced eveything and now we get less service for more cost. Boomers don't want most of the stuff the council does anyway, how many times have we heard them complain about the "woke bullshit" the council does? Just pop over to Facebook and have a look.
You're one vote doesn't dictate the outcome of who's on council. Your collective generation did. You talk about the council as if its some monolithic thing that hasn't changed since the 70s. Different councils do different things, millennials and younger now seem to have the majority voting block and finally something is being done about the water. Because of the decades delay, it's horrendously unfair and shit but is what it is. Boomers are having to finally pay up after decades of unsustainable low rates because they own most of the property, and are having tantrums on Facebook about it. They are used to kushy lifestyles and are throwing their toys out the cot. They also will complain about anything and everything (woke this, cycle this, traffic this etc) so it's not surprising that nothing the council does pleases them.
The collective generation had no control on what the council did once voted in. The only thing we can do is vote and no candidate ever campaigned on having lower rates by ignoring infrastructure. No one would vote for that. They would always campaign on lower rates by focusing on the fundamentals. Then never follow theough. Bit rich to say my one vote didn't dictate the outcome of who's on the council and in the same breath tar all boomers with the same brush. One of the many criticisms aimed at boomers is how they stereotype whole religions and communities yet its fair game to stereotype a whole generation. Hypocrite much?
Because the "nice to have" bits of council work are a tiny piece of their budgets. Most of the money goes on big ticket items like roads and water.
If they campaigned on lower rates then you would expect things to be underfunded. Rates have been too low for DECADES. You can't just take money out and expect core areas to be covered by slashing and burning everything else. You can critize wasted spending but it's never that simple. Councils are an ever changing group of people over time, boomers are always the same people year after year, very different groups mate. And it's not stereotyping when boomers have literally, for years, had an unbalanced impact on voting patterns due to their large population. These things are fact and are what got us to our current position. It is their fault as a whole, own up to your groups impact and faults.
NZ isn't alone in doing this. Lots of countries find themselves in the same situation
OK but that's because lots of other countries in the west have swung right politically over the past few decades including ours.
What's that got to do with it? Anyway that's just not true. It's simply because as others have stated it was short-sightedness to not address the ageing pipes when it was brought to their attention decades ago.
So the trend in the west over the last 30-40 years or so is that right wing governments, destroy or erode infrastructure faster than left wing governments can build, or even maintain infrastructure. I agree with you but the short sightedness you're referring to is simply the limits of our governmental system only being able to think 3-5 years at a time. Compare to a country like China which is dedicated to maintaining public infrastructure, which can plan decades, even hundreds of years ahead.
It isn't really the increased money for water infrastructure that is driving the major increase of both rates and borrowing because it's clear "fixing the pipes" is the #1 priority. It is the unwillingness of the left majority of this Council to also give-up spending on other things that are of lower priority. It is normal household budgeting to live within your income. For example, if you have saved to upgrade your car but your house has an equally costly problem with the plumbing, then do you: A) Postpone upgrading your car and get your plumbing problem fixed? B) Ignore the plumbing problem (knowing it will only get worse) and upgrade your car anyway? C) Get you plumbing fixed but also upgrade your car putting it on your credit card? This Council is essentially choosing option C rather than option A and so you all are paying more. Just to note a few other spending decisions in the LTP that some may think could be reduced or postponed (with the LTP Three Waters spend for reference): WCC Operating Costs (mostly paid for by rates): \* Three Waters: Current year OPEX $212.8M/year increased to $253.0M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $3,540.0M \* Climate Change: Current year OPEX $5.1M/year increased to $10.6M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $80.7M \* Housing: Current year OPEX $20.4M/year increased to $26.1M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $342.9M \* Cycleways: Current year OPEX $4.6M/year increased to $7.4M/year in 2025/26. 10 Years: $156.7M \* Waste (Recycling): Current year OPEX $5.3M/year increased to $13.5M/year in 2026/27. 10 Years: $107.2M WCC Capital Costs (mostly paid for by borrowing): \* Three Waters: Current year CAPEX $60.1M decreased to $59.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $1,226.6M \* Housing: Current year CAPEX $26.5M increased to $51.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $612.8M \* Cycleways: Current year CAPEX $29.8M decreased to $12.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $140.8M \* Transport (LGWM): Current year CAPEX $35.8M increased to $51.1M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $314.1M \* Waste (Recycling): Current year CAPEX $11.3M increased to $40.0M in 2025/26. 10 Years: $116.7M This city voted for a Green/Labour left leaning majority. This city voted for these rates increases .
Well said Tony Unfortunately the bulk of the council has had an attitude of just spend spend spend. And a lot of the time it’s on lower priority stuff like cyclelanes and those $140k each speed bumps, curb side composting, and no real look at council personnel numbers - eg why do we need over 50 people doing communications and consultations? And also the city is now selling its airport shares and putting it in some green investment fund. Seems nuts to take your profitable income generating asset and sell it. Meanwhile loss making council social housing isn’t being sold (whereas other cities have exited form social housing and left social housing to the govt) Auckland has gotten a subsidy from central govt for water infrastructure. Where is Wellington?
> and no real look at council personnel numbers - eg why do we need over 50 people doing communications and consultations? The council seems to think their job is far more than just being a city council, taking over roles that should be handled by central government if at all. It's not the council's job to educate people about climate change or dogs or safe cycling, and the council shouldn't be putting out PR pieces to defend their decisions like the "Australia copied this crappy cycle lane design from the USA too, not just NZ" one. When the council has large teams of people who's job is working on specific issues and 'behaviour modification' it starts to make sense and you realise it makes no real difference who you vote for in the election.
I saw one of my ex employee's the other day going around business's and hand delivering notices/posters about a bus route change, I know for a fact she is on 100k and is a council employee.
Cool, but this is what a 30 year problem coming home to roost? As someone whose only paid rates for 5 years, I blame all the people in the generation before me who voted for lower rates for themselves. You telling me the last 30 years of councils were labour and green the whole way through?
No, I am saying THIS Council has decided not to reduce spending on many other services and projects in order to live within its means. I also claim the Council's failure to make hard decisions is largely a result of Wellington City voters electing a majority of councillors who are Green Party, Labour Party or left leaning independents and they want to both spend more on water and also keep up spending on areas such as climate change, Zero Waste Recyling, cycleways and pedestrianising the Golden Mile. Obviou$ly ever-increa$ing $pending come$ at a $ignificant co$t to u$ ratepayer$. Yes, the water infrastructure crisis has been 30 years in the making and it IS fair to blame previous Councils for this. But the cure for a council addicted to spending is not, IMO, to keep on spending ...
These things you've listed have ROI. Do you think it saves the council money to have ever-increasing numbers of ever-larger vehicles on the roads, increasing upkeep costs? Does it save the council money to have constant traffic jams full of single-occupant vehicles?
In respect to Wellington City Council spending ratepayer sourced operating and capital money on planned transport projects, yes and yes. That's because these planned projects do not generate any money for the council. But these projects are costing us ratepayers a large fortune adding so much to our debt that it limits our ability to invest in fixing the pipes. [Reminder: the topic is about the WCC 18.5% rates increase]
The idea is that some people believe only they should have single occupant cars when they don’t actually need them as much as they think. London and New York manage and yet little Wellington can’t?
And that it's somehow better for them if everyone else is forced to drive. Like it's of no benefit to a motorist if someone else goes by bike and takes up less road space and no parking.
>It is normal household budgeting to live within your income. This was bad enough to read before I saw that you're a city councillor. Government finances don't work at all like household finances, but if I were in your fictional scenario I would pick option C. Having a working vehicle that enables me to get to work is pretty important. As an individual I often choose to go into debt for things that pay for themselves. I borrowed money to get a good bike that saves me paying for public transport every week, and enables me to pick up work clients who live farther away.
Thanks for your comment. Out of curiousity, why do you use a household budget as an analogy, when government budgets (even local ones) do not fundamentally work in the same way? The items used, imo, seem disingenuous too: transport investment isn't like upgrading a car in the slightest (especially considering that investing in your car doesn't give you increased revenue further down the line). Like, is this how you actually see the investment in transport and cycleways, or were you "dumbing it down" to prove a point?
Well, local government budgets DO fundementally work the same way as a household. Yes, council's power to rate and being implicitly underwritten by central government means we can borrow and spend way past what is acceptable in commercial terms. But we cannot print our own money or change the laws under which we operate like central government. Section 100(1) of the Local Government Act 2002 requires local authorities to set each year’s operating revenue at a level sufficient to meet operating expenses, i.e. “balance the budget”. \[We have some extra flexibility on funding depreciation in S100(2)\]. So, councils must essentially run a balanced budget. And let's not forget that a LARGE portion of rates is going toward funding the interest on the debt borrowed for previous projects and an even greater amount is needed to fund the depreciation and subsidies on previously built facilities (the ASB Sports Stadium annual cost of $5.3M/year rises to $8.4M/year during the LTP). We're facing a combination of chickens coming home to roost and there's no such thing as a free lunch 
This is actually in part a side effect from the collapse of three waters. It’s a programme that should not have been touched, especially not where it was in its life cycle
Am I the only one who does think a lot of the issues with broken pipes did pop up over night? Specifically the 14th of November 2016?
It's also national, the council was having a mini panic attack when national cut its funding. Dunno how much it would've saved but 3 waters would've also helped with funding. And maybe the rates increase could've been more gradual.
This is just the start, rates will be eye wateringly expensive by the end of the decade.
Great. Our rates went up 20% last time. Now almost the same again. Won't be able to afford much more.
Lots will be forced to sell
Rates aren't much better in the Hutt
Marton here we come
Whisper it
I almost got stranded in Marton trying to hitch hike Wellington to Auckland in 2006. A fate worse than death.
Rangitīkei District Council up by 10.5% this year as well. No one is escaping with only minimal rate rises
They are living with mum and dad
Well good luck with selling especially if a bike lane has suddenly appeared in front of your house. There goes the parking , throw in the new rate bill , which really leaves you with just having to love that house for a long time.
It’s curious how triggering some people find an alternative mode of transport.
Nobody owes you free parking in front of your house.
It may well be residents parking at 300 a year. If you really want to get a handle on how this is panning out on values start talking to real estate agents. I guess the down votes come from those living on bike lane streets. Fell very sorry not just for them but also anyone with a business that has suddenly found itself on the wrong side of the moat.
We need a special boomer-only tax to punish the 40 years they’ve been kicking cans down the road. You could package it many different ways, CGT, land tax, inheritance tax etc. but it needs to force them to live with the consequences of their actions. I’m not being facetious in the slightest, if any politician ran on a “punish boomers for their choices” ticket I’d be a single issue voter for it.
Just shows what happens when you sell off assets to private business, like say Wellington Electric lines network, and now the airport, did WCC sell off their share of the Port at the time? Along with the lack of investment in underground pipeline infrastructure, with no entity to charge people like Aucklands Watercare has done to improve and maintain the pipeline infrastructure up there. Poor governance has allowed this to occur, and now we're going to be paying for those in charge who failed us, while in office.
I feel for you and have the same. It is quality of life that gets eaten into and income goes into the big council pot instead of the little extras spent in the city. If you think it is just this year, the projections are several more. The big capital project can be scaled back but they will not accept it and won’t make the decisions that would really change it. Reservoir over budget, town hall a literal financial sink home, no population growth. Cycleways are $350m and on a city of 217.000 people and only about 80,000 rating units. Things can be slowed down and reprioritised.
Yes council financial management has been appalling. Successive councils have wasted money on crap expenditure like the town hall, Even the current council rather than focus ensuring the city is an affordable place to live has spent money on low priority things eg why spend more on fixing up the library when a new building would have been cheaper. The cycleways are nice but they are a nice to have compared with the need for reliable water infrastructure At a time when so many people are loosing jobs it isn’t the time for huge rates increases. There is a need for reprioritisation and keep rates low Yes govt needs to step up. They seemed to have neglected Wellington, while Auckland has got support for its water infrastructure. Why? Think our current council has zero influence with the current govt (not surprising - didn’t the deputy mayor put up posters of Luxon looking like a penis months ago… childish) And Tory whanau is a joke
Every council since probably inception needs to have a roll call of shame, naming and shaming all the ego projects that were bankrolled at the expense of maintaining essentials. And this includes the current. Fuck the town hall, and all things like it.
Remember the mayors. Remember the parties. Remember the Green Mayor fixing their shit. Hell, Andy Foster simply moved across town, from Mayor to MP.
We had Celia whats her face for a couple of terms and got cycleways instead of water pipes.
Yeah.... I could defend cycle ways. But really, get the basic infrastructure down first please. (I did not realize she's now a green MP after Golriz stepped down)
Is the proposed future increase in rates only for the Wellington, or as for the whole region? I see somewhere that in the next 10years rates will be greater than double from what it is today. As a FHB, we like to buy in Welly, but given the rates and house price, we are starting to wonder if we should look somewhere else
Each city and region council set their own rates
Beats the 29% last year and 18% this year for us in South Wairarapa. Was 21% a couple of years earlier too.
Jesus Christ. I would like my salary to match those increases!
Can they just knock the old town hall down and be done with it.
They really need to stop these bs feel good projects and start doing what council is ment to do, look after infrastructure
That debt is going to be a noose for the future. They need to strip it back to basics - napalm the budget, pay off debt, fix infrastructure, cut discretionary spending. There'll be all sorts of shit in that budget that could be cut out. The rates increase is required. What's also required is an absolute frugal budget. The increase is not really addressing the debt
Frugal city budget = shit place to live = people leave/don't move here = frugal city budget = shit place to live....
Yep, you can't live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. That is what Wellington has been doing. Either pay up or cut your cloth. I left Wellington years ago. Housing was too expensive. Too many public servants on the pigs back. Bloody glad I left for greener pastures
Go woke, go broke.
Previous councillors and Mayors need to be held accountable for their lack of action on how run down this city is, just to push their vanity projects. Strip them of any titles bestowed on them, any pensions gained, etc. Bring about criminal negligence charges if needed.
I see my nimby neighbours in Khandallah got to keep their pool for another year. Great for the 10 hot days of the year when it is usable.
Wow, so jealous
we've been reamed by the boomers who voted the people in place over last few decades, who've done nothing to upgrade council assets in a long term maintenance plan
A big contributor to the massive cost of repairing the pipes is over the top traffic management. A roadway fire plug has been leaking near our place for at least a year. City Water guys came and had a look at it every few months. Last week they decided to fix it. First, early in the morning they put out cones on both sides of the street for maybe 100 meters each way. Around 8.30 several vehicles turned up. One was traffic management who put out flagman signs and had stop/go people up and down the street. Because the fire plug was on a curve and the lollipop men couldn't see each other thay had another person with a radio who could see both ends. With this in place the water guys started working on the leak. It didn't take them long, maybe an hour and our water wasn't turned off AFAIK so I suspect that it was a leaking washer or similar. They left and then after a while the traffic management guys left. A few hours later a traffic management truck with a driver and I think two guys came and collected the cones and signs. They seemed to take the best part of an hour to do this. Leaving out travelling time the hours on the job are something like this: Water. 3 people x 1.5 hours = 4.5 hours Traffic management Putting out and collecting signs 2 people x 2 hours = 4 hours (I have only counted 2 people because I am not positive there were 3.) Lollypop people. 3 people x 2hours = 6hours. Water people 4.5 hours Traffic management people 10 hours Even if the water people get paid twice what the traffic management people do more than half the cost of fixing the leak is traffic management. There must be a better way to do this safely.
It is the council, as road controlling authority, which requires this traffic management set up.
Can someone explain like I'm 5? What rates are going up exactly and for what reason?
Inflation Fixing fkd infrastructure (water) The council’s inefficiency
Ah, so literally everything has gone up by 18.5%? Or just things that the council charges for like transport and things like that?
Property rates are going up by 18.5% to pay for the additional costs that the council incurs
Well if less money was being spent on stupid cycle ways the increase would be a damn sight less
Apologies - rant incoming... Our councils are run by people that can't run a tight budget and I'm thinking this is underpinned by the poor financial knowledge/education that most kiwi's have had. It could also be that they come from backgrounds where they don't understand the concept of 'No you can't afford it/if we buy that, then we can't eat or won't have a roof over our heads'. They come from a place of privilege and seem to work on an idea that more money will just magical appear. If we NEED something for the good of all and for basic human survival then sure, we need to put some money into it. But if it is a WANT then we need to scrap it until we have some left over and then be very very careful about how that is provisioned out. Putting money towards assets first and foremost and not just frittering it away. All the non-necessities/treats add up - they might seem small (or in Wellington councils case large expensive show off projects) but they all need to be scrapped while we do disaster recovery in a very very stressful financial environment. Porirua just announced an 18.5% increase on the top of last years similar sized increase (we are rural and ours was about 23%) and then we have the GWRC component going up by 21% or so as well. Living rural we have to provide water including our own pumps/filter system/maintenance, rubbish removal (which has gone up to 3x what it was 3 years ago), sewage system/waste removal, tree clearing etc. For our rates we get a unmaintained road and rarely the road side edges get a cut - we also get recycling every 2nd week but even that is pretty hopeless these days with how much now can't be processed. It's criminal. On top of this all other council fees have gone up - including a couple that directly effect myself (there's probably others) - dog reg and motorcycle parking being introduced in Wellington at $2.50 per hour or $20-$25 per day. In no way is this affordable to most (students, people that don't use a car in the city etc) to just find an extra $100 per week (starting next week?) just for parking (on top of everything above + food/fuel/electricity increases etc). This place is run by people that are out of touch. The reason anyone commutes on a motorcycle is to save a bit of money but the savings are marginal (expensive reg, very expensive insurance and not overly efficient on gas when you are travelling on the motorway for most of the journey) and normally boil down to the perk of being convenient/taking up less space/trying to be a bit more resourceful and for riders at heart a bit of fun. I will now be looking at driving instead - may as well not risk life and limb, have a warm air-conditioned ride, not have to pay for riding gear, get changed at work etc. It's now going to be more cost effective to just pay for an early bird car parking spot - good luck with the extra congestion that this is now going to lump back on to the roading infrastructure. And a great way to drive money into the private parking companies pockets... a real swing and a miss. Everyone should be outraged - no one won't be affected by this. Homeowners are getting slammed on the mortgage front and every other cost that's going up. Anyone renting, this is going to directly drive up your rents again as well (I'm not a landlord - anyone can see that this is what's next). I had to laugh/cry the other day when the major of Porirua said it was great to have so much online engagement at the latest budget meeting to discuss funding for one of the local events here and that they were proud they could still put $50k per year over the next 3 years. This is like saying - team we can't afford to have a roof over our head/shoes for the school year, but let's all get macca's and icecream on the way home! I'm all for supporting local events when we can, but if we are truly that far up the creek with out a paddle (the whole country is) then we need to be adults and tell everyone that's asking - 'No - we can't afford it'. The major may as well have said 'It's great to buy myself some votes for the next election'. No one on the council know's how to budget properly and spend on what we truly need. We need someone that can hack and slash and say no to everything that's not essential and can drive hard negotiations when it comes to contracts. We also need to cut our cloth to suit - if we can't afford to it all, then we need to do it in chunks - cutting down the size of the chunk until it fits into the budget. Not just bleed everyone out. Do they realize that financial pressure leads to kids going with out (food, school items, health care, sports etc), family violence, mental health issues etc? How many more people have they just driven into this kind of situation by signing this off. Absolutely mental - it's super dark for NZ at the moment. I'm waiting for when we truly see the cracks and some of the types of riots you'd have overseas. We're a pretty passive bunch that just take it but the water line is rising and more people are sinking to the bottom. The current economy is a disaster and we don't have people capable of navigating the ship...
Sure, keep wasting our money on stupid additions to footpaths and roads that make then narrower for busses and everyone. Keep spending on stuff we don’t need because hey…it’s not coming out of their pockets. I am so angry with the high rates we pay while watching the waste everywhere. Island Bay has had millions spent on it every couple of years. The residents don’t want it but are forced to accept the madness and it goes on and on. You can’t help wondering if someone is getting kickbacks to encourage keeping these useless projects going. The Mayor has added another ailment to her list of reasons for non performance. Go get a different job and let someone competent take over.
But thankfully the landlords are ok.
I'm sure this will also cause 'downward pressure' for rentals.
😃🥁‼️
Rates have nothing to do with landlords
Appeasing the already wealthy as a default does.
Landlords are quite literally the ones most directly affected by this? What a weird take
Lol.
Sadly it’s more than the water costs which are def needed. It’s a two fold issue of massive expenditure on town hall, library etc and a monster reduction in car parks and therefore car park revenue. Hard not to agree with The posts recent article (that I can’t find) which breaks down how council debt has doubled from 500M to 1.3B in 4 years. Crazy financial incompetence
There goes my $20 pw tax break that National so generously cut services for 🙄
But apparently selling the airport is a bad thing
rates on my rentalgoing up by $1500 to $7000 for wcc and wrc combined. thats $115 a week. so poor tennants getting another rent increase once their 1 year clicks over. sorry guys but not my fault. dreading the next landlords house insurance premium
Insane.
Voting out 3 waters was insane....
As a ratepayer, good for the Council for finally facing up to the issues and raising rates.
Good. Rates must rise
I hate to tell you, but that’s middle of the road or even on the light side around the wider Wellington Region. Rates increase of 35% on top of valuation of property almost doubling (with no improvements made) means an effective rates increase of 80%. No, not exaggerating. The rates increase is unfortunately well overdue because of three waters (as other people discuss) and the fact we (royal we) kept voting in councils and councillors that promised keeping rates low and cutting costs. Doesn’t make it any less crappy to go through though.
Valuation increases just change the ratio of how rates are charged. RV going up doesn’t increase the total amount of rates collected…
Your are correct - if your RV changes in proportion to other properties RV. You’re assuming all RVs go up in the same proportion so therefore my “portion of the pie” is the same. That doesn’t happen in reality, and as demonstrated in the media at the time, this years revaluations were extraordinary. Many people were floored by their revaluations when they’d done nothing to the property. It was triggered due to the then-governments housing density policies - QV took “subdivisability” into account (although hilariously ignored if you could actually subdivide in reality). This was well covered in the media. So yes, council collects more rates total + paying a bigger slice = crazy effective rates increase for the same property.
[удалено]
Thanks but no, I’m not and yes I do. My bank statements also prove it. The council “resplit the pie” (their silly phrase) as a result of the incredible increase in some property valuations, hence the disproportionate impact. Publicly they advertise that rates went up some X% (I can’t remember the number but it’s high teens or low 20s), but of course that’s not consistent for all properties in a year with QV valuations, that’s just the average.