Wellington 'losing its mojo', says city councillor Rebecca Matthews

Monday, 9 November 2020

Wellington city councillor Rebecca Matthews says Wellington is losing its “mojo”, an ironic situation considering the city has “approximately 1 million Mojos”.

Matthews tweeted the comment alongside a Stuff article highlighting concerns among young professionals about the city’s ability to attract and retain skilled workers.

The concerns were raised by people aged between 25 and 40 and working in technology, engineering, law and accounting firms in Wellington’s central city.

Their comments were given to Wellington City Council’s business advisory group, and formed the basis of a report sent to councillors and local MPs over the weekend.

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Matthews, the first-term councillor who holds the council’s associate community wellbeing portfolio, tweeted her support of the findings on Monday.

“I would be the first to say Wellington is losing its mojo (which is ironic as we have approx [sic] one million Mojos),” Matthews said, referring to the high number of Mojo cafes in the city.

“From a council perspective, we need to take on these challenges – housing, transport, infrastructure, and a people-friendly central business district.”

Matthews’ comments were supported by many others on Twitter, including Tom Mitchell, one of the 19 people who provided comments for the report during a breakfast with the business group in September.

The group is made up of business sector representatives, mayor Andy Foster and city councillor Diane Calvert.

“As the speaker of some of the more incendiary quotes in this report, I assure all that the actual breakfast was far more tense and dire than reported,” Mitchell said.

The report raised significant concerns about the city’s dearth of quality and affordable housing, as well as crumbling infrastructure and a lack of job opportunities.

Many others reacted to the findings on Twitter on Monday, with the majority agreeing with the report.

“All the artisan fried chicken, craft beer and art galleries in the world can't make up for 'heritage' rentals full of mould, unaffordable houses, buses that don't turn up, trains that get disrupted every week, and a dysfunctional, do-nothing council,” one post said.

Another said: “I loved the Wellington I moved to in 2008. What we have now in 2020 just makes me angry. Wellington is home but I am being forced out of it.”

One person said rental costs were the “number one push factor” driving people out of the city, while another said that “kicking the housing and infrastructure can down the road for decades has consequences”.

Calvert, who helped to establish the advisory group, was more diplomatic in her summation of the report, tweeting that the “pure gold” feedback would help shape the city’s future.

She also said the the session with the professionals was clear that the city still had a ‘‘soul’’.

“The young people outlined very real and tangible issues and we will feed those into the economic growth plan we are currently developing. We have to ensure the city offers a strong job market, good quality of life and is affordable in a post-Covid world.”

Co-author Brad Olsen, senior economist at consultancy firm Infometrics, said there was a “lot of work Wellington can do” to attract and retain talent.

Wellington lawyer and novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam told Stuff the report reflected the comments he had been hearing among young lawyers.

“It is certainly a pretty commonly held view that the city is becoming considerably more unaffordable.

“People are getting priced out of being able to live in the city, either through renting or ever being able to afford a house or apartment.”