Two days, several big calls to end 2024 for Wellington City Council

Monday, 16 December 2024

Selling airport shares, the future of Wellington's City to Sea Bridge, selling ground leases and suburban parking charges are some of the big issues facing Wellington mayor Tory Whanau, top left, and her council as they enter the final two big days of 2024 - all while Crown observer Lindsay McKenzie, bottom left, watches on.

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Suburban parking fees, selling assets and hiking rates further are all on the table as the Wellington City Council ends a terse year by lifting the scab on thorny old issues. But first, talk of a judicial review.

It is understood that a group set up to save the City to Sea bridge ‒ the pedestrian overpass joining Te Ngākau Civic Square and the waterfront ‒ is considering filing legal paperwork early this over the council’s decision to demolish it.

The council and its long-term plan committee will meet on Tuesday morning, then not meet again until mid-February ‒ making Tuesday the last chance to make the call on what it decides it wants to keep in its draft and revised long-term plan which it will send out for public consultation in the new year.

Tensions that marked Wellington City Council in 2024 were put aside as councillors and the mayor sat down for an end of year lunch, which they paid for themselves.

“I’m proud of how we’ve come together as a collective over the last few weeks and made some really tough decisions to deliver the best outcomes for Wellingtonians,” mayor Tory Whanau said on Sunday. “I am confident this next step will proceed without difficulty.”

The long-term plan is having to be revised after councillors voted against selling its 34% stake in Wellington Airport, undermining the financial basis it was based on, but also because traditional government funding for transport was cut by $68 million and after changes to water infrastructure funding pushed that problem back on to councils.

The man who oversaw the building of the Wellington bridge is skeptical Wellington City Council's the projected costings.

The long-term plan revision sparked Local Government Minister Simeon Brown to install an observer to keep an eye on the council’s decision making. Many of those decisions fall on Tuesday.

The council had already voted on 10 years of rates increases averaging out at 8% per year. The new draft budget keeps that 8% average but front-loads it, making the previously-agreed 12.8% next year now 15.9%. Whanau last week committed to reducing that. Council debt was also expected to increase faster than planned for the next three years, then slow after that.

A plan to have parking charges in some suburban centres was scrapped in May after a public outcry, albeit with the option of looking at it again. That time has now come and councillors are being asked to include it in the draft budget for public consultation.

Paid parking of $2 to $5 an hour in nine suburbs – Kilbirnie, Newtown and Tawa are the biggest potential earners – could net the council up to $1.73m a year, papers say.

The papers also show that the council could get “at least $68m” by selling nine ground leases, land the council owns and leases back to building owners. There were “live opportunities” to sell all nine. Councillors are being asked on Tuesday to let staff initiate negotiations, with a final decision back to council in March.

The council has 63 ground leases worth about $246m.

Wellington City Council had a tense meeting in October about selling airport shares. From left: Councillors Nīkau Wi Neera, Ben McNulty and Nureddin Abdurahman.

Councillors are also being asked to agree that the sale money goes towards setting up a disaster resilience fund, which is what the airport share sale money was going to be used for.

The council is recognised as being drastically under-insured for a big natural disaster with its ownership portfolio, to sell when needed, under-diversified. The airport shares are its biggest sell-able asset.

An attempt by the council to sell those shares failed in October after a large campaign to keep them resulted in an even-more deeply divided council, a $400m to $600m hole in council books, and a mayoral warning more cuts would be needed as a result.

The option of selling the shares is again now being put to council. The preferred option for elected members is reducing debt – so more could be borrowed after a natural disaster – and setting up a smaller disaster fund with the $68m from selling ground leases.

Correction: Reducing debt was the preferred option because councillors asked for it, not because staff recommended it as written in a previous version of this story. (Amended: December 16 2024, 1pm)