Wellington City Council set to deliver lowest rates rise in years
Wednesday, 27 May 2026
The Wellington City Council is pegged to today deliver its lowest rates rise in years.
The proposed 5.8% increase in Wednesday’s Planning and Finance Committee is down from the 12.7% increase in the council’s current long-term plan. The new council was in December warned cost pressures could push it as high as 18.8%.
But previous savings had reduced it to 9.4%, which itself was reduced to 7.4% after deputy mayor Ben McNulty led a cost-cutting working group which shaved money from multiple areas.
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A new 5.8% figure has now appeared in council papers to be included in the coming year’s annual plan.
The average Wellington City household last year received a 12% city council rates hike, a year after an 18.5% increase and 12.8%, 8.8%, then 12.3% the three years prior. The 5.1% increase in 2020 was the last time it was lower.
While the plan would be officially voted in late June, before the end of the financial year, committee chairperson Diane Calvert confirmed Wednesday’s meeting was a major milestone as it was when the annual plan would be deliberated.
Calvert said the extra savings were found with “no major services being cut” and were because “the culture the mayor signalled is starting to filter through”.
Mayor Andrew Little was elected in October after campaigning on reining-in unnecessary spending and has already made his mark, via McNulty’s working group, his own Triennium Plan which aimed to keep rates as low as possible, and targeting individual costs, such as the council’s planned spending` on festivities to open the new central library.
Calvert, a long-time critic of most unnecessary spending, said the extra savings were made despite rising petrol and interest costs.
Council papers show $1.9 million was saved by reducing salaries through “vacancy management” (not replacing all staff that leave). Another $7.7m was found through checking assumptions around when assets would be completed. With many assets being delayed, savings in interest and depreciation expenses were made.
Wellington’s water management will be taken over by Tiaki Wai in July, meaning the water component paid via rates will be billed directly.
Calvert said the 5.8% was on the money staying with council after the switch and included the levy most Wellington households paid for a new sewage sludge treatment plant.
If the plant was not being built, the increase would be 3.8%, she said.
While the figure could change in Wednesday’s deliberations, Calvert said amendments she was aware of were in the “tens of thousands [of dollars], not millions”.
Little this week said the aim was to keep the agreed rates increase as close to 5.8% as possible.
“There'll be a little bit of some proposals and counter proposals in the next few days as we get to the meeting, so we'll see how those go,” he said.
Councillor Geordie Rogers confirmed Green councillors would move an amendment to allocate $220,000 to the council’s climate mitigation and adaptation fund.
This came after money was down to be cut from climate change initiatives as a result of McNulty’s working group. The Greens passed an amendment to restore funding from elsewhere. The $220,000 is the shortfall between money cut and money found.