Wellington effectively signs off annual plan with 5.8% rates rise and Airbnb charge
Wednesday, 27 May 2026
The rubber stamp is yet to come down, but the Wellington City Council effectively has an annual plan with a 5.8% rates hike and a contentious Airbnb charge.
The blueprint for the coming financial year, starting in July, will be officially signed off in late June but Wednesday’s Te Taurapa Planning and Finance Committee vote is seen as the last chance for fundamental changes for how the council will charge its residents and businesses, how it will spend that, how much it will borrow and what will get funding cuts.
The key votes passed unanimously though there was some dissent on individual items. For Nicola Young, the longest-serving current city councillor, it was the first annual plan she has voted for after objecting to 12 past ones which she saw as spending too much and charging excessive rates.
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The 5.8% average rates increase, the lowest the council has delivered since 2020, comes after mayor Andrew Little campaigned on cutting unnecessary spending and carried a swarm of Labour colleagues in with him while the majority to his left and right largely agreed to most, if not all, cuts.
Little said the city faced a “major” affordability challenge and the annual plan was a step towards addressing that. But more “structural” cost cuts were possible when the council soon started work on its next 10-year plan.
The 5.8% increase mean an annual increase of around $390, just over $1 a day, on a $1 million property.
Perhaps the most-controversial change is a rates multiplier of 2.6-times for some short-term accommodation providers, such as Airbnb hosts. However, this could be reviewed if the Government introduced a bed tax.
Proponents of the change say Airbnbs are, in-fact, commercial enterprises and some are taking homes out of the property market. Opponents say Airbnbs don’t use any more resources than other homes, most operators are trying to make ends meet, many couldn’t be let residentially, and it will be nearly impossible to police.
There are also plans to cut-back extending the Paneke Pōneke bike lane network, notably losing routes through the central city designed to link up various suburban routes. However, a $4.1m Brooklyn upgrade and $2.5m Bunny St to Queen’s Wharf survived the cuts.
Green councillor Geordie Rogers moved an amendment to go ahead with the north-south bike lane – likely via Victoria and Featherston streets – through the city, funded by selling carbon credits, to avoid cyclists and pedestrians on the waterfront route. It failed after only the four Green councillors voted in favour.
Councillor Tony Randle failed in his amendment to end all cycleway spending until more planning was done after getting himself and four other, from the council’s right, in favour.
The council also saved $13.5m by not funding some depreciation while $1.1m was cut from the council’s consultancy budget.
The plan will also mean it is more expensive to dump contaminated soil and asbestos and some council fees and charges will increase.
The council is also set to get a dividend of $18.6m from the 34% stake it has in Wellington Airport after a 2024 plan to sell the shares failed.
But it has to borrow $10.8m over two years to fix the Moa Point sewage treatment plant, which was catastrophically damaged in a February malfunction and flood.