Auckland City Rail Link: $4.4b project finds just $72k to help business owners

Monday, 5 August 2019

City Rail Link construction is affecting businesses on central Auckland's Albert St (video first published April 2019).

The $4.4 billion City Rail Link is the country's priciest transport project, but only $72,000 has been scraped together to help cash-strapped businesses battling to make a living behind its trenches.

Just 0.002 per cent of the Auckland project's budget has gone into helping the likes of Sunny Kaushal, who is claiming losses in the millions, and Kingna Yu, who tried to escape Albert St after a breast cancer diagnosis.

City Rail Link Limited has continued to defend its offers of assistance, pointing to the multiple programmes available to struggling businesses.

Kingna Yu tried and failed to escape Albert St after a breast cancer diagnosis.

Meanwhile, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, who previously batted away the owners' pleas for financial relief, has come alive, saying CRLL has not done enough to help the Albert St owners.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff does not believe enough has been done to help Albert St businesses struggling to make money while operating next to CRL earthworks.

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* CRL boss concedes comms with struggling businesses 'probably' not good enough**

Figures provided to Stuff reveal CRLL spent $72,225 on business disruption support between July 2017 and June this year. A CRLL spokesman said more had been spent since June, but he could not give 'accurate details'.

Shakespeare Hotel owner Sunny Kaushal believes at least six Albert St businesses have shut their doors after trying to trade alongside delayed CRL works became too much to bear.

City Rail Link Limited chief executive Sean Sweeney has been resolute in his defence of the company's business assistance offers.

Many of those remaining were 'broke'.

'The debts are mounting to an unsustainable level,' Kaushal said.

'Week after week we are struggling to make our businesses stand – we are struggling to pay staff wages, council rates, rent, GST, excise tax and the supplies and invoices.

'The banks now consider the street as a high risk, they have stopped lending or extending overdrafts.'

Stuff has spoken to numerous owners on struggle street.

Rakuten Japanese Cuisine owner Kingna Yu tried and failed to sell her business for a third of its purchase price after a breast cancer diagnosis.

'After that [diagnosis] I decided to sell the business, but it's really, really hard because of the roadworks,' she said.

Now Goff is on the attack, telling Stuff not enough had been done to help the businesses.

'I think that some aspects of the earlier assistance package could've been delivered better and I think CRL would acknowledge that,' he said.

CRLL chief executive Sean Sweeney said the company had helped businesses in numerous ways.

Despite criticism, he backed offers like free social media training, pointing to the 'influential role' of the platform as a tool for businesses to reach audiences and promote themselves.

A free business support package including 12 months with a mentor, a year-long membership with the Auckland Business Chamber and social media training had also been offered.

But Business Chamber chief executive Michael Barnett said the $72,000 'morsel' for owners was 'a shameful response to the businesses who have been grossly disadvantaged by this project'.

The spend showed the Auckland Council leadership team's 'total lack of understanding' of who 'creates wealth and employment for our community,' Barnett added.

Sweeney said street cleaning, business advertising and events such as a Cheap Eats campaign, Wednesdays on Wellesley and Eat Albert were among other initiatives, while an Albert St business directory was being created.

In the meantime, Goff was continuing his new push towards a targeted fund for small business owners.

'I know that … [the Government] are not going to enter into an arrangement for a compensation fund for all major public works or business disruption,' he said.

'But I am saying that I believe there is a case, in human terms as much as anything, to look at the serious situation and the hardship that may be faced by a small number of businesses that are heavily impacted by this project.'

The fund would not be available to a 'multinational hotel or major businesses that are slightly disrupted'. Instead, it would be address serious hardship situations.

'That's not a compensation fund, but a closely targeted hardship fund where people would obviously have to demonstrate that the impact on their business was because of the construction that was taking place and that this was having serious and really unsustainable impact on their wellbeing as individuals and as business enterprises,' Goff said.

The mayor implored landlords not to impose penalties on struggling business owners behind on their rent.

Building owners were in for a 'huge windfall profit' upon CRL's completion, he added.

CRLL was established in June 2017 and is jointly owned by Auckland Council and the Government. Excavation work on Albert St started in July 2017.