Apologies that I haven’t written to you since I became Deputy Mayor of Auckland. The last 8 months have felt like 8 years as so much has happened.
Let’ s do a recap. Last October were the council elections, which resulted in a new Mayor for Auckland Wayne Brown. Mayor Brown received 181,810 votes, to date the most votes any Auckland Council Mayor has received. I’d like to thank the people of the Orakei Ward for resoundingly voting me back as the Orakei Ward councillor. Following the elections and time needed for any recounts we then had a formal swearing in ceremony at the Auckland Town Hall in November. It was at that event I had the privilege of being formally made Deputy Mayor.
One of the first things the Mayor needed to do was put forward a budget for the 2023/2024 year. This draft budget was made public in December along with the Mayor’s decisions for the types of committees he wanted for the term and those councillors he wanted to chair them.
January traditionally has no formal meetings, so I took time to take a well-deserved break and arrived back in New Zealand on 26 January the day before the 27 January flooding event. Since then, Auckland has been faced with a cyclone, landslides, further severe weather events and a budget being passed!
So let me start with the budget. This year has been an unusual year as no one knew whether any version of mayor’s proposal would pass. After 29 workshops with staff and over 80 hours to discuss the details of the budget it did not surprise me that it took two days to debate the budget, in which we also considered alternative approaches. On 9 June the Governing Body (20 councillors + the Mayor) voted in favour of an amended Mayor’s proposal for the Annual Budget 2023/2024 by 14 votes to 6. The final budget was a compromise for everyone, myself included.
What does the finalised budget mean for Auckland?
One of my biggest concerns with this budget was the impact on ratepayers (business and residential) and those who use our services at a time when Aucklanders face high cost of living, increases to public transport, and increases in mortgage rates to name but a few.
However, we also had an operating deficit of $325 million (plus $40 million of storm costs) so the challenges were great for Council too.
When balancing the budget, we have only four tools in the toolbox, rates, debt, cuts, and asset sales. We spent a lot of time poring over the feedback we received from Aucklanders, but it was fair to say it was not a clear picture – there were those who wanted higher rates or use of debt, and to reduce the level of cuts. But others preferred to see us make those cuts and hold our use of rates and debt. In many ways the budget rested in the debate whether to sell all the airport shares and those who wanted to sell only some or none.
In summary, we ended up with the following:
• Average residential rates rise of 7.7 per cent (additional $253 a year for the average residential Auckland ratepayer.
• Partial sale of shares in Auckland International Airport (AIAL) to pay down around $865 million of debt, with a net funding benefit of $115 million over the next eight years.
• $83 million of operating spending reductions (down from $125million in the budget consultation). I.e., Fewer cuts and keeping the likes of funding for the Citizens Advice Bureau, arts and culture and only a $2million cut ( as opposed to the original $16m cut) to the regional local board budget
• $105 million of debt (up from $75million in the budget consultation).
• $40 million for storm recovery activity.
• We still maintain $2.8 billion of capital investment in transport, parks, and community facilities, Watercare assets, local developments, urban regeneration and cultural development, and environmental management.
It has been an exhaustive and arduous process, but I believe we have reached a balanced position which is credible, prudent, sustainable, and implementable.
Everyone had to compromise to come to a consensus. In some ways you could say, the final budget was a triumph for democracy.
Flood recovery.
To give you an idea of scale of the weather events we have had this year, an entire years’ worth of rain drenched Auckland in less than 5 months.
The Ōrākei ward was seriously affected too. It took the life of a local resident Dave Lennard in Remuera. Tāmaki Drive and the beach areas experienced flooding and high waves. Parnell and Remuera were seriously affected by land slips.
Immediately after the events, properties in Auckland were red, yellow or white stickered. These stickers indicated immediate risk, red being the highest risk- non habitable. 7000 building assessments were undertaken; 679 red stickers, 2359 yellow and 4326 white stickers were placed on properties by the end of March. Over $2 million of Emergency Fund payments were made and $1.3 million in Rates Relief.
We recruited a specialist manager (Mat Tucker) to lead our recovery. Mat had worked in Christchurch post the earthquakes. His role is not only to lead the recovery of Auckland from the storms in January and February but to come up with solutions that mitigate risks. He is looking to collaborate and engage with communities and look at what we can do differently or better.
That new piece of work has been called Making Space for Water and is planned to be delivered over the next 6 years. It includes:
· Storm water solutions like stream widening
· Identifying high risk properties
· Investment in planning and modelling tools to enhance council decision making - gaining flooding intelligence
· Community led flood resilience – advice for property owners in high risk area
· Increased maintenance.
To add another level of complexity, in May, central government came up with three new risk categories for assessment of affected properties post cyclone and flooding. We are currently transitioning the red, yellow and white stickered properties to the new categories and including all potential properties that may fall within this framework. Just because your house may have been “stickered” after the floods does not necessarily mean it will fall into a risk category. Indicative estimates are that around 400 homes in Auckland should not be rebuilt. This is out of 700 nationwide – so almost 60 per cent. To categorise at-risk properties with certainty, a site-by-site assessment and hazard identification is required. For Auckland, this exercise may take six months or more given the scale, challenges of accessing private property and industry capacity. To accelerate this process, Auckland Council has begun contacting those property owners that are more likely to be a Category 2 or Category 3 and asking them to provide us with more information so that risk assessments can be completed.
I want to end with a list of achievements. 2023 has been testing so far, but there have been few “wins” that should be appreciated. So in no particular order:
· Getting school buses sorted on the Panmure to Selwyn College route. It was brought to my attention that this school bus was either not turning up, overcrowded, or arriving late resulting in school children being late for school. I worked with Auckland Transport to find a workable solution and I have heard that this improvement has been well received.
· The Portland Road environmental works in Remuera– the area is now open for the public to explore – it is an incredible local walk of native plants and walkways. We removed over 6000m3 of silt from the stream to improve water flow. This allows water to flow unobstructed when tidal gates are open. We then created a land feature out of the silt. By repurposing the silt, we prevented it filling up our landfills, it has kept trucks off our road network and saved over $800k in tipping and transport fees. We are so lucky to have a natural wetland in an urban city.
· Futureproofing the Domain Wintergarden glasshouses. Recent structural strengthening and restoration of the two buildings has ensured this important part of the city’s architectural heritage will be around for many decades to come. This heritage building is an outstanding example of twentieth century design and recently won the Auckland Architecture Award for Enduring Architecture.
Work still in progress:
· Tāmaki Drive works – the new walkway along Tamaki Drive is due to be opened in August this year.
· Ngāpipi pedestrian bridge – Better walking and cycling facilities on Ngāpipi Bridge are a key part of the wider programme of improvements in the Ōrākei area, including the works on Tāmaki Drive and Kepa Road. Auckland Transport are widening the bridge which will expand the area available for people on foot and cyclists as well as allowing the existing 4 traffic lanes to remain the same. It will provide the connection between the Tāmaki Drive Cycle Route and the Ngāpipi intersection, which connects to the Glen Innes - Tāmaki Drive Shared Path.
· Ongoing Kepa road works. Kepa road retaining wall is a resilience project. It is designed to manage the risk of a significant slip that undermines the road, which would result in the complete loss of traffic access for several months. Kepa Road is a district arterial road carrying over 23,000 vehicles per day and is also a bus route. Part of the road, beside Ōrākei Basin, is in a slip zone. Between April -November 2023, Auckland Transport are undertaking works to stabilise and prevent possible damage caused by landslides on the road by building a palisade retaining wall and reconstructing the footpath.
The first 8 months of my term as Deputy mayor has whizzed by. However, I am committed to ensuring that I also represent my local ward and stand for things that you value the most. I have attended resident association meetings, handed out awards to local children for community work and scholarships; spoken at local ANZAC events; watched local productions at Selwyn Community Arts Theatre and supported residents and local business.
As always, I remain available to you should you have any questions or concerns.