Back to the drawing board for Wellington 10-year plan?

Tuesday, 17 September 2024

Two late-breaking seismic shifts underpinning the Wellington City Council’s decade-long blueprint has a councillor sounding the alarm the entire plan may have to go back to the drawing board.

The coalition Government in August passed its Local Water Done Well legislation, fundamentally changing how councils borrow and fund for storm, waste and drinking water infrastructure. Meanwhile, nine out of 16 city councillors have forced an October 10 vote as they try to get the council to cancel a planned sale of its 34% Wellington Airport stake.

Councillor Diane Calvert said the two changes, which happened after the council’s 10-year long-term plan was finalised, were so integral to the plan that the entire thing may now have to be effectively chucked out and started again.

That would mean all the council’s planned spending, borrowing, and rating could have to go back again for public consultation, debate, then be voted on again. The changes would technically be a long-term plan “amendment” but changes would be so huge that it was an more like a restart, she said.

A long-term plan is only done once a triennium and sets the course for what the council plans to do in the coming decade, only to be rewritten by a new council three years later. This year’s plan included a record-breaking planned investment in pipes and selling the airport shares to set up a fund to help the city after a big natural disaster.

It also included years of big rates increases, organics collections, revamping the Golden Mile, new bike lanes, and much more.

Councillor Teri O’Neill voted against the airport share sale in committee but, when it came to the final council vote she could only vote against it by voting against the entire long-term plan.

She voted for the long-term plan but was later one of the nine councillors who signed a notice of motion, meaning the airport sale would come back for another council vote.

She confirmed on Monday she opposed the sale and would likely vote against it even if that meant an effective rewrite of the long-term plan.

The crucial difference was that voting against it in June would have left the council without a plan, putting it in breach of local government legislation. This time the existing plan would remain operational until an amended one was confirmed.

Councillors were yet to get information from staff about how cancelling the share sale would affect the long-term plan but this was expected at or before the October 10 extraordinary meeting about the sale.

Mayor Tory Whanau said the airport notice of motion mentioned that an amendment to the long-term was already likely due to the water changes. It would change the plan significantly enough to make an amendment legally necessary, she said.

“It is incredibly frustrating that some councillors are seeking to undo [the airport] decision and are instead putting ideological obstacles in the way of pragmatic solutions which would secure our city’s financial future.”

Councillor Tony Randle doubted the entire 10-year plan would have to go back to square one but said a no sale of the airport would mean the council having to scale back its current borrowing so it could borrow more after a disaster.

Day to day running of things like pools and libraries, funded by rates, should not be affected but projects such as the Golden Mile and Te Ngākau Civic Square revamps, cycleways and a zero waste strategy may have to be reconsidered.