Urgent hardship payments of $2500 to $10,000 from City Rail Link hardship fund

Tuesday, 21 September 2021

The streets around Auckland's City Rail Link have become a tagger's paradise. First published in August 2021.

Owners of businesses blighted by the Auckland City Rail Link construction site say they need promised urgent payments from the $12 million hardship fund to pay the leases on their shops.

Applications opened on Tuesday for hardship payments of between $2500 and $10,000 from the hardship fund, announced on September 3 by Minister of Transport Michael Wood and Auckland Council mayor Phil Goff.

The fund was set up following media coverage of businesses closing, with owners saying the constant noise, dirt, narrow gloomy pedestrian alleyways and growing anti-social behaviour in the streets around the construction site had driven shoppers away.

Wood promised advance interim payments would be made to businesses likely to be eligible for hardship payments while the fund’s full eligibility and assessment criteria were being finalised.

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The City Rail Link construction site has blighted nearby businesses, driving customers away.

The fund is being administered by City Rail Link (CRL), the company carrying out the construction, despite struggling business owners calling for the fund to be managed by an independent third party.

Andy Ariano closed the doors on his restaurant, Da Vinci’s, in Auckland CBD after a decade. He was a victim of the Auckland’s City Rail Link construction works, which have killed his business.

City Rail Link is the largest transport infrastructure project in New Zealand, costing $4.4 billion and taking eight years to build. It is expected to be complete by 2024.

CRL’s website said interim payment amounts would determined based on the level of disruption experience by businesses. Auckland Council and the government are sharing the cost of the fund.

“Payments will range between $2500 and $10,000 depending on the level of disruption experienced,” it said.

The interim payments would only be open to small businesses with fewer than 20 employees, which had been operating since before October 1, 2019.

Businesses which closed as a result of disruption from the construction site like the Da Vinci Italian restaurant, which closed in late July, were not eligible for payments.

“$10,000 is meaningful as an interim payment. That will go straight to our landlord,” said Jugdish Naran from the Roma Blooms florist shop on the corner of Albert St and Victoria St West.

But, he said: “$2500 would be pretty much nothing. That would be our rent for a week.”

Sean Sweeney, CRL's chief executive, said: “These payments will provide some financial assistance for these businesses while eligibility and assessment criteria for the fund itself is finalised.”

The fund recognised businesses were experiencing financial hardship due to major and sustained CRL construction disruption.

Sweeney promised local businesses would be consulted on the eligibility criteria the fund.

“Advance interim payments will provide some financial assistance for eligible businesses while that work is being completed,” Sweeney said.  

Businesses on Victoria Street West and Albert St in Auckland CBD have signs up protesting their plight. “Minister Wood, how much longer do we have to wait?” “Mayor Goff, are we the eggs you have to break?”

The fund would be available to qualifying small businesses neighbouring construction sites of CRL’s tunnels and stations around Aotea Station midtown, Karangahape Station, and uptown at Mt Eden Station.

“Our focus will be to assess requests for interim payments quickly to those businesses that qualify,” Sweeney said.

The fund was only open to business owners, not landlords.

ACT MP Simon Court called on Wood to ensure interim payments were made quickly.

“The expectation was raised by the minister that advance interim payments would be made forthwith, yet these have still not been made,” he said.

The government had had plenty of time to sort out the details, Court said, with Wood having been approached with a plan at the start of the year by Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck.

Wood was contacted for comment.

The struggles of the businesses around the construction sites have led to lobbying for large-scale future construction projects to incorporate hardship funds in their costings to support local businesses.

“You can’t expect a small group of business to suffer an extra tax on their income and activity for the benefit of tens of thousands of future rail commuters. It's not only unfair, it makes no sense whatsoever,” Court said.