The big issues for Auckland's leaders
Photo:
Stuff/Chris McKeen
Auckland's rapid population growth is considered one of the key challenges for incoming council elected members, a report has revealed.
The city's population is expected to jump to 2.3 million people over the next three decades, leaving questions on how Auckland Council will pay for the increased demand on services.
Auckland Council's pre-election report, prepared to support the upcoming local elections, lists how leaders can best use resources for the region's future.
Key issues identified were productivity and growth, infrastructure investment, asset management, climate resilience, community services and funding.
Photo:
Council chief executive Phil Wilson, in a statement, said the report will give Aucklanders and its future leaders greater awareness of the opportunities and challenges facing the region.
"By 2034 we are projected to see an additional 200,000 Aucklanders joining our diverse community," Wilson said.
"That is slightly more than Hamilton being added, in only nine years. This rapid growth brings increased demand for services and infrastructure, such as transport, water services, parks and community facilities."
Auckland Council chief executive Phil Wilson.
Photo:
Supplied to RNZ
Auckland was a vibrant and rapidly growing city, and council's elected members face some tough decisions over the next three years on how to pay for that growth on a tight budget, he said.
"To accommodate this growth, we must confront the challenges our region faces, while ensuring long-term financial sustainability.
"These include addressing Auckland's relatively low productivity and lifting the region's economic growth to support development."
Wilson said council exists to be an effective agent for the needs and aspirations of Aucklanders, and good governance should be prioritised.
"To ensure this, it's vital that people standing for roles as mayor, councillors or local board members are well-informed as to the state of the city, key challenges and the council's financial situation."
Current council strategies respond to growth by integrating land use and infrastructure planning, improving transport networks and advocating with central government for greater input into policy.
However, Wilson said more will be required as the council continues to plan for a projected growth of 540,000 people over the next three decades - bringing Auckland's population to 2.3 million.
"To increase productivity and influence positive growth, Auckland must address long-standing barriers, including congestion, infrastructure bottlenecks and regulation.
"We also want to maintain the council's sustainable financial direction where we affordably deliver the infrastructure and services Aucklanders expect, to help them live their lives better."
The council estimates the need to invest $295 billion on maintaining, operating, enhancing and growing Auckland's infrastructure over a 30-year timeframe.
"Unlocking the potential created by infrastructure investment is an opportunity to be considered by our elected members, including working with central government agencies and other partners to identify and maximise the opportunities.
"Infrastructure investment makes up 86% of the council's total budget to 2034, so it's a significant part of decision-making for elected members."
Wilson said council must also respond to greater demand on its community services and an increasingly diverse community, with equally diverse needs.
The current services require further investment to ensure they remain relevant, accessible and effective in addressing the changing needs of Auckland's communities, he said.
The Pre-Election Report is a legislative requirement under the Local Government Act 2002, where council chief executives must prepare a report independently of the mayor and councillors.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
28 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Infometrics doubles New Zealand's 2026 growth forecast
Infometrics says strong export incomes will be a key driver in New Zealand's economic recovery. (File photo) Photo: Unsplash/ Jakub Żerdzicki Surging farm exports, lower interest rates, and less worry about tariff turmoil has led economics consultancy Infometrics to double its growth forecasts for the economy. In its latest set of forecasts it has taken a slightly more upbeat view of the recovery. "Strong export incomes, particularly across the agricultural sector, will be a key driver of New Zealand's economic recovery over the next 18 months," chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said. He said the recovery would be an "old-fashioned pre-nineties style", with farmers' incomes boosted by high export prices, eventually flowing through to provincial cities and then the main cities. Lower interest rates would also stimulate household spending as debt servicing costs fell, but caution would remain because of a soft jobs market, with unemployment set to peak at 5.3 percent later this year. "This will help cement a recovery in household spending towards 2.8 percent a year growth during 2026," he said. But Kiernan said the recovery would be uneven as southern rural areas outpace the main centres. Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said economic recovery would be uneven across the country. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Auckland would benefit sooner from lower rates and government infrastructure spending, but Wellington would continue to struggle as it absorbed public sector job losses. Growth was forecast to average 2.1 percent a year over the next five years, but individual shares of the economic - the per capita measure - will take at least two years to previous highs. The economy posted six months of solid growth at the end of last year and the start of this year. However, recent data has suggested the economy has run out of steam in the past three months , possibly even contracted. Kiernan said fears about the outlook for New Zealand's two biggest trade partners - United States and China - have not disappeared but did not seem so threatening. "The negative effects on exports look likely to be less critical than initially feared. "International financial markets have shaken off the worst of their fears and are becoming less pessimistic about the outlook for growth." Kiernan said the greater worry about tariffs was the impact on New Zealand's trading partners, which face higher levels of levies, and the associated impact on global growth. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
28 minutes ago
- RNZ News
'Councils have lacked fiscal discipline' Local Government Minister says
Local Government Minister Simon Watts says the bill is all about reining in costs. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Legislation making changes for councils has passed its first reading overnight, coinciding with this year's local government conference in Christchurch. The Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill was introduced this week, and passed its first reading on Thursday evening. It removes the 'four wellbeings' - social, economic, environmental and cultural - from councils' purpose and imposes a series of mandatory requirements. Councils will need to prioritise core services in spending, carry out extra financial reporting and transparency and accountability reporting, and disclose all contractor and consultant spending. It also makes some minor regulatory tweaks, like allowing acting or interim chief executives to sign compliance certificates and extending council chief executives' second term from two years to five. Local Government Minister Simon Watts said the bill is all about reining in costs . "Councils have lacked fiscal discipline and spent far too much on the things that most people do not consider core activities of local government," he said in his first reading speech. However, it seems somewhat at odds with the government's view of the main source of rates rises, laid out in the bill's explanatory note. "Rates rises are being driven primarily by rising council costs , particularly for critical infrastructure. However, the government is concerned that rates rises are being exacerbated by a lack of fiscal discipline among councils," it said. The coaliton partners were both offering full-throated support. ACT's Cameron Luxton said the bill sent a clear message. "Councils are not mini-parliaments; they are service delivery agencies. Their job is to manage infrastructure and keep communities running, and doing it while delivering value for money. When they deviate from that, and waste ratepayers' money, they increase the cost of living on all of us," he said. ACT MP Cameron Luxton. Photo: Parliament TV After arguing that transparency needed to be improved, he concluded that "democracy matters". "If you want a say in how local money is spent, you should get elected, and this bill is working to fix that direction in New Zealand." Former Wellington mayor Andy Foster - now an NZ First MP - said ratepayers' priorities have changed in the last three years. "I had 30 years on a council. Generally speaking, what we heard from is people saying 'we want more services, more services, more services'. "For the last three years we've started to hear people say in increasing numbers 'we are concerned about our rates, we are really hurting' - and people are really now afraid. They're finding it difficult to actually pay the rates and they're concerned they may not be able to stay in their own homes." Opposition parties were all opposed. Labour's Camilla Belich highlighted the "deep irony" of National championing a bill she said would end up "snatching control off democratically elected councils". "What this bill says is: Wellington knows best, Wellington knows your community better than you, and the government is going to step in and tell your council what to do. It's a degradation of the rights of democratically elected councils," she said. The irony, she said, was because National was "the same party that railed against Three Waters and the decisions that the Labour government was making in order to save ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars". Labour MP Camilla Belich. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith Watts' speech had laid out that the bill would enable a code of conduct and rules for councils to be "set centrally rather than on an ad hoc individual council basis". "This will provide greater certainty and greater consistency about behavioural standards across local government, reduce costs for councils, and ensure councillors are fully informed to make decisions," he said. The rhetoric did seem a departure from his 2022 approach to Three Waters in opposition, where he said "the challenge is: is a top-down or centralised approach ... the right model? We don't believe it is". However, Watts told RNZ the feedback on the bill from mayors had been positive. "Quite a lot of positive feedback from mayors," he said. "In one way, by defining exactly what they must do means they can now have a conversation about the activities that aren't on that list, and at the moment they can't because pretty much everything fits into the wellbeing [provisions]. Overall, pretty positive. The regulatory and the relief changes in the bill take work off them and that takes cost away from them as well, so that's positive. "Look, it's a challenging time in local government, we get that - there's a lot of reform underway, Local Water Done Well's well in train - but overall, I enjoyed my yesterday." The previous day, Watts had been in Christchurch at the annual Local Government New Zealand conference. Mayors at the conference had a range of views on the wellbeing provisions and whether the bill would be effective. Far North mayor Moko Tepania pointed to the one wellbeing initiative on the council's books - a $300,000 fund for its three community boards that enabled community groups, businesses, school groups and the like to "do cool stuff in our rohe". "That's 0.001 percent of the total operating revenue that we're putting into wellbeing initiatives. I actually think it's probably not enough money." He said the legislation was unlikely to change much, saying councils were already spending their money on core services and the government was simply rebranding "wellbeing" as "infrastructure". Moko Tepania (Ngāpuhi), Far North mayor. Photo: Layla Bailey-McDowell / RNZ Central Otago mayor Tamah Alley agreed, saying their rates rise this year was 18.4 percent, 95 percent of which was for core services. "We're having our communities tell us what they think are core services ... they've said museums are core services, community halls are core services, libraries are core services, they want to see some of the arts things that happen in our communities. "I'm not sure where they think this 'over and above' spending is going. In Central Otago we don't have a lot of nice to haves ... and most of them, people are saying that's what makes living here so great." South Waikato mayor Hamish Daine said the wellbeings had led to rates rises, but "those wellbeing are actually what's lifted the community and actually built what our community's all about". Clutha's mayor Bryan Cadogan was confident the wellbeings had not led to rates rises. "No. It's actually the wellbeings are just bread and butter. They're the strings that tie a community together and it's just inconceivable to me as leaders how we take that out of our community. Yeah, sure we've got a responsibility for the bricks and mortar - I get that - and at the moment we have absolutely no choice. "We're ticking over 90 percent roads, water, and rubbish, over 90 percent. So the very little that's left is meant to hold the community together ... for years our facilities were allowed to get old, and society paid. The connection of the community and the spirit and the wanting to live there and seeing a future in the town. People turned their back and left, so you turn your back on the four wellbeings at your peril, long term." Labour leader Chris Hipkins says "flip-flopping" is not good for councils. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Labour's leader Chris Hipkins supported the wellbeing provisions but not enough to bring them back if Labour wins power. "We did return them to government previously, I guess the one hesitation I would say there is the flip-flopping's not good for councils ... so I do think we need to have a broader conversation as a country about what we want our local councils to do." The bill will now face public scrutiny at select committee, which reports back in November. Meanwhile, Minister Watts wants a cap on rates rises in place by Christmas - although the other coalition parties have cast doubt on the idea . Councils have long complained about their inability to raise revenue that doesn't rely on rates - like a bed tax, or fees for tourists using toilets - but the government is not open to making changes which could allow that. Ministers have previously said it's not a priority, and Watts this week said he had made clear the government will not support new taxes and revenue tools. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
38 minutes ago
- Otago Daily Times
Development restrictions reform slated
A government reform agenda aimed at making development easier could make life harder for communities, a Dunedin city councillor has warned. Politicians had shown "ignorance of the realities of planning" and the steps necessary to ensure good behaviour by developers, Cr David Benson-Pope said. Some areas were more suitable for development than others and sound planning achieved good results for communities, he said. "It's not in anyone's interest — other than private capital — for people to be able to do what they want. "It's certainly not in the wider community interest. "And that's why we have these rules — to protect people's rights and property and finances, actually." Cr Benson-Pope's comments come amid a government freeze on some council planning ahead of resource management reform. Minister Responsible for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop said at a Local Government New Zealand conference this week restrictive planning rules were holding back economic growth and exacerbating the housing crisis. "Key projects across the country continue to get declined by your own planning departments. "Housing continues to be difficult to build, because of restrictive planning rules in your plans," Mr Bishop told councils. Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said he had seen resource consents for solar farms include requirements such as inviting mana whenua to perform karakia before removal of native trees and needing to submit detailed plans about landscaping, down to every plant's botanical and common name and specifying planting techniques. "You and your ratepayers want renewable energy, but the consenting process demands ceremonial chanting and spreadsheet-level detail about every shrub on site," he said. Cr Benson-Pope said the ministers had demonstrated profound misunderstanding of the work. Allowing development "willy-nilly" would leave other people to pick up the cost, he said. "We've got a system that has been refined over decades to make sure that we have good information about problems with areas — like water risk, hazard risk of various kinds, earthquake risk — where we can consent fairly comfortably and where we can't," he said. "And so why wouldn't we want to plan and encourage development in the sensible places?" Cr Benson-Pope said landscaping often mitigated the negative effects of a building. Being specific was about ensuring the right results were achieved, he said. TGC Homes director George Hercus said building an entry-level townhouse in Dunedin cost about $100,000 more than in Christchurch and differences in regulation between the two cities was a key contributor to this. "I support any move by the government to cut through that red tape ... and to refocus the council on addressing the housing shortage the city has, rather than the type of plants we are allowed to plant."
