Auckland City Rail Link-affected businesses end their strike against $12m hardship fund applications
Friday, 11 March 2022
Desperate owners of businesses blighted by the construction of Auckland's City Rail Link are breaking their hardship fund application strike.
The 22 businesses have been calling for changes to the $12 million Government hardship fund, which was set up following media exposés on the financial and emotional plight of nearby business owners who have been deserted by shoppers.
Shobhana Ranchhodji, from Roma Blooms florists, says some owners’ financial distress is so acute they have to all break the strike. “We are one group of people who have been impacted. It's one for all, and all for one.”
Among the application strikers is Anny Quan, who says her Natural Health shop has been affected by the CRL project.
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**
“I have done everything I can. I’m hopeless for my life. No-one can save me except Government,” Quan says.
Quan, whose sister Camila calls her hourly as she fears she will self-harm, owns the Natural Health shop in Albert Street, which has gone from being a thriving business worth $1 million to a shuttered shop.
Customers will no longer come to an area that has become a dark, dismal, dusty, dangerous and graffiti-disfigured construction zone, threaded by narrow alleyways behind hoardings, she says.
Quan says the stress, and her mounting debts, put her in hospital with stomach ulcers so bad she had to have an operation. She suffered hair loss. She has attempted self-harm, and has been prescribed anti-depressants.
Quan, who speaks little English, and relies on employees Carly Park and Joe Wang to translate for her, except when expressing herself in short sentences, says: “Is very hard. My life is very hard.”
If the business fails, she could lose her home.
“Daytime is okay, but nighttime is not good,” Quan says.
Park translates for Quan: “She can’t sleep, and feels like she is going out of her mind. She has no idea how to live.”
She says Quan's mother and sister have both given her financial support. Her mother had sold her house.
“Now, we don’t have anything,” she says.
Quan bought Natural Health in 2014, and built it up into a thriving business, which was visited by Korean and Chinese celebrities visiting New Zealand.
“My shop had many, many Korean and Chinese stars coming,” she says.
But “now nobody wants to come to the shop.”
As shopper foot traffic tapered away to nothing, the area saw a big rise in delinquent behaviour.
People defecate and urinate in the shop’s doorway, Park says.
Thieves have brazenly entered the shop. In one instance an aggressive man came into the shop and filled a bag with expensive honeys.
“I just grabbed the bag,” says Park. “I was so scared. I didn't want to, but me and my colleague, two women, just tried to stop him.”
The company has moved to online sales, but the margins are small, and the revenues have not made up for losses she has suffered.
Quan joined the group of owners at the the CRL construction zone to protest against being forced to shoulder massive, uncompensated losses resulting from the rail link construction.
After a campaign the Government agreed to set up a “targeted hardship” fund.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Michael Wood says it took too long for the CRL project's impact on business owners to be acknowledged.
“As things stand there is sufficient money to assist eligible businesses, but they will need to take the step of applying.”
Auckland mayor Phil Goff says he supported the creation of the fund to alleviate “genuine hardship” because he saw the disruption construction had caused.
The fund was a first in New Zealand infrastructure history, and will be reviewed later this year, he says.
“Sponsors cannot commit to further funding until that review is undertaken,” Goff says.
Payments from the fund are limited to a portion of each business’ rental cost and only those CRL deemed to be in the construction zone.
Payments from the fund will only cover a limited period from February 2021, and provide no cover for the period in which the Covid-19 wage subsidy was available.
‘That's really unfair. Covid has come on top’,” Beck says.
The fund made some immediate interim survival payments, and Natural Health received $10,000. But Quan says her rent is $8000 a month, and she’s six months behind, though that is only a portion of her debts.
Angered by the limitations of the fund, a perceived lack of transparency, and CRL's control of the fund, the business went on application strike, which raised questions in Parliament last month when MPs realised only $500,000 out of the $12m hardship fund had been paid out.
Jugdish Naran from Roma Blooms says business owners believe the $12m allocated to the fund is an arbitrary amount.
“They’re telling us the only reason it went to February 2021 was Mr Wood said they would run out of money,” Naran says.
“He said it was fair. In what way is that fair? For him, or for us.
“We want reassurance it is going to continue until the project finishes,” he says.
Quan says she is certain she will get money from the hardship fund, but she does not expect it to clear her debts, or cover lost profits, or the destruction of value in her business.
In 2015, she was offered $1m for the business, she says.
“Who would come and buy it now?”
CRL chief executive Sean Sweeney told the select committee in February that hardship fund payments were without prejudice and the businesses could sue.
He also praised the “admirable job” CRL had done managing the impact on the public of what was a “very disruptive project”.
Wang says CRL does not fear being sued.
“We have no finance to take legal action, so they are not afraid of us. We can’t pay our rent. How can we pay for legal action,” he says.
“CRL destroyed everything and ruined our life.”
Wood has also ruled out passing legislation to require future large infrastructure projects to budget for hardship funds for affected businesses.
Beck says that is not good enough, and there is no evidence that a hardship fund has been budgeted for the $14b light rail link plan to link Auckland Airport and the Auckland CBD.
Where to get help
1737, Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor.
Mental Health Foundation 09 623 4812, click here to access its free resource and information service.
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In a life-threatening situation, call 111.