More to rates than just the rate, Mr Palino

 

Guest post by Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate Stephen Berry

Following John Palino’s official announcement that he intends to run again for the Auckland mayoralty, I would describePalino’s pledge to cut rates by 10% over three years as “refreshing.”

The three media favourites have tried to get by on policy-free platitudes about waste cutting and fat trimming. Now a proper contest of ideas can begin.

I myself recognise a two-pronged approach to controlling rates is necessary, and suggest that Palino’s plan will only be successful if he looks beyond the percentage charged on a property’s value.

In January, my Affordable Auckland team announced its policy to freeze rates at their current level for three years. Costing approximately $35 million a year in lost revenue, this is a credible step towards arresting rates growth; it is not however the only step that must be taken.

Under the Local Government Rating Act, councils are required to raise rates revenue by charging property owners a percentage of their property value. It also states that the maximum amount that a council can raise through targeted rates or a uniform annual general charge is 30% of total rates income. This means that even if Palino is successful in his pledge to cut rates, rapidly increasing house values could still see the amount ratepayers are paying increase. Therefore any mayoral candidate wanting to fix the rates issue also needs a plan to fix the housing affordability issue.

The fault for an over-valued housing market can be laid squarely at the feet of those central planners and NIMBYs who strangle housing supply and drive up compliance costs. The Council bans residential development outside of the rural-urban boundary which creates an artificial land shortage and drives up land costs. NIMBY groups like Auckland 2040 organise revolts over heritage, character and intensification, whether the actions of an owner violate somebody else’s property rights or not. In Titirangi, even tree removal work that has been authorised by the Council can face costly delays as property owners are subjected to bullying and harassment by their neighbours.

The process property owners go through to obtain resource consent needs to be streamlined by Council as much as possible within the parameters of the Resource Management Act. Zoning rules must become more flexible, allowing for a greater range of development in the inner city as well as the edge of Auckland. A respect for private property rights should be the overarching concern in decisions about issuing consent for development and alterations. The rule should be: Do what you wish on your property as long as your actions do not violate my right to enjoy my own.

Unless the artificially over-valued state of Auckland’s housing market can be dealt with by increasing supply, making zoning more flexible and respecting private property rights, rates increases resulting from value inflation will trump any other steps taken to control them.

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Berry Backs Government Against NIMBYs

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland

I am backing the Government’s unusual step to join with Auckland Council in fighting an attempt by residents in Three Kings to block a 1500-unit housing development in the Three Kings quarry.

One of the leading causes of house price inflation in Auckland is Nimbys and their desire to interfere in other people’s business. Well done to the Government and the Council for sticking to their guns.

More than seventy public and local board meetings have been held since 2008 to consult on a plan change allowing the development to take place and two third of the 237 submissions received on it were favourable. This is more than enough time and money to spend consulting on an issue which really should just be a simple question of property rights. Does this development violate the rights of its neighbours? Is it a genuine impact or an invalid moan about property values; the sort that are artificially inflated by stopping other people enjoying their own property.

The appeal to the Environment Court seeking to block the development is being led by South Epsom Planning Group and Three Kings United. The two Not-In-My-Backyard groups want the development to be restricted to low-rise housing, which would see fewer than 1000 house built, instead of the proposed 1500 apartments and townhouses.

This case demonstrates again why urgent overhaul of the Resource Management Act is needed. It needs to be real reform; not the half-hearted attempt currently before Parliament. Construction in Auckland should not be held hostage by activist busybodies when it really is not any of their business.

For a truly affordable housing market to develop in Auckland, we need to completely re-think the way planning rules work. The left want to centrally plan intensification while the right want to centrally plan sprawl. Both forms of central planning are fiscally bankrupt. It’s time to move to a system of individual choice which safeguards the property rights of neighbours.

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Stephen Berry is Affordable Auckland’s Mayoral & Albany candidate
He placed third in the last mayoral election.

Affordable Auckland’s Rates Revamp

Guest post by Affordable Auckland’s Mayoral & Albany candidate Stephen Berry

Affordable Auckland has announced a revamp of the ticket’s rates policy. We started the campaign with a commitment to keep rates increases below inflation. With inflation levels at historic lows, however, the point is somewhat academic.

Latest figures for price inflation show that annual levels have fallen to just 0.1% in the December quarter, well below the Reserve Bank forecast [i.e., guess – Ed.] of 0.4%. This continues a downward trend, with price inflation below the 1% mark for the last five quarters and at its lowest rate since 1999. In light of this trend, Affordable Auckland candidates believe it is credible to go into the next election pledging to freeze rates at their current level for the next three years.

This pledge is realistic because Affordable Auckland policy is to restrict Council spending to the core services required by the Local Government Act. It doesn’t include corporate welfare. It doesn’t include educational lobbying, and it certainly doesn’t compel the sponsorship of sports tournaments.

If elected, Affordable Auckland candidates will stop paying for warm fuzzies and get on with concentrating on the essentials the city needs to function.

The Local Government (Rating) Act stipulates how rates must be charged by Councils; as a percentage of annual value, capital value or land value. It also states that no more than 30% of council rates revenue can be raised by targeted rates or a uniform annual general charge. While the Auckland market has temporarily slowed, the fundamentals causing rampant price increases have not been fixed. So unfortunately, even if the council freezes the level that it charges on properties, growing property values can still see an increase in the money amount Aucklanders are paying. 

To truly control rates we need remove the council-created market distortions that are artificially inflating Auckland house prices.

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Stephen Berry is Affordable Auckland’s Mayoral & Albany candidate
He placed third in the last mayoral election.

While Goff backs kauri bullies, Crone et al remain silent

Guest by Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate Stephen Berry

The campaign by a Titirangi neighbourhood to prevent two landowners legally felling their own tree has got a boost after Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff gave his support yesterday. It's time, I think, that all the declared Mayoral candidates give their position on the issue.

Both Goff from the left and Bright from the loony left have shown they support replacing proper legal process with mob rule, and that the invasion of private property by neighbourhood thugs and bullies is completely justified if it furthers their own causes. Mr. Goff has also stated that he is drafting a private members bill which will give greater protection to particular trees.

Essentially Mr. Goff is now using parliamentary resources to shore up his support in next year’s election which is completely inappropriate.

I am the only Auckland mayoral candidate to publicly support landowner’s Jon Lenihan and Jane Greensmith.

The Kauri tree is their property, and they have gone above and beyond their legal obligations to obtain permission to clear their own land. Whatever promises the protesters claim to have extracted when they prevented the tree’s felling back in March are irrelevant. There is no moral obligation to keep a promise extorted through coercion.

As of now, both centre-right candidates Mark Thomas and Victoria Crone have been silent about the kauri debacle.

Ms. Crone really ought to try expressing an opinion on something since her recent ‘no policy’ campaign launch.

And I’m sure the true blue ward of Orakei would be interested to hear their Local Board Deputy Chair’s view on whether private property rights are important to him.

Since the Kauri tree in question is not collectively owned, it's clear enough that the campaign by a group calling itself ‘Save Our Kauri’ is a total misnomer. It isn’t our kauri; nor is it their Kauri. The Kauri belongs to Lenihan and Greensmith. While other people are welcome to hold an opinion on the future of the tree they should not be permitted to invade the owner’s property and occupy their land.

It’s time the police stepped in to remove the illegal occupiers and allow the landowners to go about their legal business.

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Stephen Berry is the Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate.

A mayoralty, if you’re interested.

On Monday, Victoria Crone announced she would be standing for the Auckland mayoralty and, as the former NZ CEO of high-flyer Xero, was immediately installed by the media as the "business" candidate.

Mind you, being the business candidate doesn't mean you really mean business—nor that running a successful business is  the same as being top dog at a super-sized council spending the proceeds of everyone else's super-sized rates bill.

Even Labour-ite adviser Josie Pagani understands that, pointing out that

If you’re going to stand for political office the minimum requirements must surely include some rationale for your candidacy. You want to do the job because you see a job needing doing. You need to have something sensible to say about topical issues and some guide to what you expect to do in office.
     If you don’t have these minimum contributions to debate, then your candidacy is pointless.

Victoria Crone does not have these minimum contributions to debate. At her launch, she was wholly unable to articulate an actual concrete position on anything, saying in answer to questions on specifics she had "just announced yesterday" so "I'm not getting into policy." That would all come “later.” Translation: “I’ve given it no thought. But I am sort of interested.” [Listen here to her being interviewed, if you're at all interested.]

And on her website, where you might expect at least some answers to some of the big issues? Pagani visited Victoria Crone’s website  to see what she plans for Auckland, "only to find my low expectations wildly overestimated."

There’s about as much substance here as Kanye West’s run for president. She wants to ‘Create Win-Win Situations’, ‘Empower People’ and ‘Lead From A Place of strength’; as if she’s running against a candidate who wants to lose, take power away from you, and be a weak leader.
    Beneath the blandly moronic motivational platitudes  - “I believe anything is possible! (insert emoji) - she lists ‘Issues’: B is for ‘Housing', C is for ‘Transport’. Maybe they’ve changed Sesame Street since I was young.
    These summaries reveal a candidate unprepared for office, lacking vision, and free from any meaningful communication of useful ideas…
    Take ‘A' for 'Fiscal Management’. Correctly observing that many billions of dollars are needed to meet Auckland’s infrastructure needs, while funding sources like rates and debt are constrained, she offers: "few alternative sources of funding have been secured. This is a major problem for our city to solve, amidst perceptions of wastage in council spending.” Yes it’s a problem, so, what would you do, candidate? Reject new spending plans? Borrow more? Are you ruling out rate increases? Will you raise rates just a teeny bit? New taxes? Tolls? Privatising infrastructure?
    Not even a hint of an idea, let alone a fresh one. That’s what makes the platitudes a problem. If you can't answer these most basic of questions about your political principles, you have no place pretending you could lead a major city

It’s a fair point—except to say that every Mayor in Auckland in Auckland in the modern era has achieved the mayoral chains not because they’ve articulated anything at all about their political principles. They’ve simply said they won’t be the last blowhard who held office.

• Christine Fletcher took office promising not be Les Mills, and she succeeded.
• John Banks then took office promising not be Christine Fletcher—but was found to be far too much like John Banks, and so was turfed out.
• So Dick Hubbard campaigned on the basis of not being John Banks, only for the public to realise that he really was a real Dick Hubbard.
• At which point John Banks won by promising to be neither Dick Hubbard nor the previous John Banks (this was now the new-improved “transmogrified” John Banks), which turned our much as anyone could have predicted.
• Swiftly realising he wasn’t anywhere as transmogrified as they’d hoped, folk then thought “anyone but Banks” and very quickly found themselves enthusiastically ticking Len Browns’s box. And we all know how that box-tickling turned out.

Which brings us back to A, B, C: Crone—who may or may not have a political principle in her body, but who assuredly has a war chest big enough to tell the city she’s not Len Brown (or Phil Goff), which may be all much of this city really wants to hear before they put pen to voting paper.

Mind you, it would be good to hear at least one candidate of any “side” make the firm, cast-iron promise that they intend to either lower rates below the absurdly high level they are now, or even just to cap them in money terms.

The closest any candidate does come to saying that is Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate Stephen Berry, who apart from also being neither Brown nor Goff al agrees that Voters Deserve Specifics on Rates. But all he can come up with as a pledge is to “keep rates increases below inflation” – which, given their explosive increase in recent years, is like a strangler promising only to suffocate you more slowly.

And even Phil Goff can almost match that, telling Morning Report, "There is a limit to rate increases, and I think we've reached that limit."

To be fair, and unlike Berry, Goff provides few concrete examples of how rates increases might in any way be "limited." But slow suffocation is not any kind of promise on which to hang your mayoral hat.

Bullies threatening Titirangi land-owners

Guest post by Affordable Auckland Mayoral candidate Stephen Berry

The owners of a Titirangi property at the centre of a controversy over cutting down a Kauri tree in March are again in the media after attempts to cut down the tree on Thursday have been thwarted by interference from neighbours and protestors. 

John Lenihan and Jane Greensmith are the victims of thugs who have previously invaded their property to prevent them carrying out a completely legal action. Their re-victimisation should not be permitted.

In March, their Kauri tree was occupied by Michael Tavares for three days until Lenihan and Greensmith promised not to cut the Kauri down. Neighbour Winnie Charlesworth claims the owners have broken the promise they made to neighbours by resuming plans to fell the tree. This is wrong. This was a promise extracted by the coercion of their property being illegally occupied. Nobody should be bound by such extortion. In any case the promise not to cut the tree down also came with an agreement to sell the property [to neighbours for a fair market price, and no such purchase has been concluded].*

I have no opinion on whether the tree should be felled or incorporated into the design of a new house because it is none of my business what decision the owners make. This is a simple question of private property rights. Do the activities of Lenihan and Greensmith violate the sovereignty of their neighbours over their own properties? Auckland Council certainly doesn’t seem to think so, even after taking the unusual step of reviewing the resource consent for tree removal.

The major affordability issues Auckland is experiencing with its property market can be traced back to the distortions caused by systematic abuse of property rights. The prevention of residential development outside of the urban boundary drives up prices through artificial land shortages. The obscene expense of obtaining resource consent adds tens of thousands of dollars to construction and land use alterations. Artificially-inflated property prices also keep rates high for owners in particular areas, regardless of the services used.

My sympathies go out to John Lenihan and Jane Greensmith for the nightmare they have experienced at the hands of their own neighbours. They will have incurred enormous expense as a result of this controversy while being no closer to developing their land.

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Stephen Berry is the Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate for 2016.
He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

* Editorial correction: Property owners John Lenihan and Jane Greensmith issued a statement yesterday saying they are restarting work on building a house on each of the two sites in dispute because the neighbours have not bought the land as they had promised. They said the "resource consents were lawfully granted, and that works could continue. It has been nine months since protesters invaded the properties at Paturoa Rd and there has been no response received to the landowners' plan. This plan was for those parties involved in the protest to purchase the two properties at a fair market value if they wished to save the tree.” No such purchase has ever been concluded.

Housing market a regulatory disaster

Guest post by Affordable Auckland’s mayoral candidate Stephen Berry

With Auckland’s housing market becoming an international sensation following the sale of a state-house hovel in Devonport for over $1 million [read Bloomberg’s ‘London House Prices Have Nothing on Auckland’], it’s clear young people and low-income families are paying the price for the Council’s regulatory disaster.

Nosey NIMBYs, heritage preservation and zone rigidity are all contributors to the insane hyper-inflation that has afflicted Auckland’s housing market. Resource consent costs averaging fifteen- to thirty-thousand dollars per site don’t help.  However the biggest elephant in the room, which the left-wing council refuses to recognise, is that what is causing the artificial land shortage sending values skyrocketing are their very own policies.”

I refuse to accept the usual scapegoat of ‘foreign speculation’ as the cause of Auckland’s heated house market. Speculation is just a symptom of our problems, not the cause. In order to slow price inflation the city needs to abolish the urban boundary and allow the city to spread out, as well as intensifying.

High school economics textbooks are not the only place you can find the basic economic laws that demonstrate price inflation when supply is artificially prevented from meeting demand. A 2010 report from the Productivity Commission report was also able to illustrate this consequence when it showed land 2km inside council’s self-imposed urban limit is eight times the price of land 2km outside of it.

Centrally planning special zones where consents processes are streamlined, and where land-owners receive special favour, will attract headlines but is not going to make the slightest dent in prices. The fact only 102 houses have been built out of 30,000 projected proves this.

The Council needs to remove the regulatory distortions it has created to allow the market to begin behaving in a healthy manner. Centrally-planned growth must be replaced by organic growth respecting private property rights. The consequences of not doing so will be and are becoming catastrophic.

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Stephen Berry is the Affordable Auckland mayoral candidate for 2016.
He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

Council Tourism Tossers Should Butt Out of Hobsonville Point [updated]

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Two arms of council are wrestling over government land.

Auckland Council’s economic arm, ATEED – an acronym standing for the unwieldy title of Auckland Tourism Events & Economic Development Ltd, aka Council’s Tourism Tossers --  wants half of the 20 ha section of land at Hobsonville Point put aside for the building of a “film studio campus” to “become this city’s Wellywood.”

This puts it offside with the Council’s property arm, which would like to see the section used for houses, apartments and a shopping and commercial centre.

Auckland Council Property Limited (ACPL) says the proposal by  Auckland Tourism Events & Economic Development Ltd (ATEED) is stupid.  I agree. (As stupid as the bloody acronyms – Ed.) It is cases like this that demonstrate why politicians and bureaucrats should have absolutely nothing to do with economic development, and why I support cutting ATEED’s $250 million budget.”

The Council should allow all of the 20 hectares in question to be used for residential and commercial purposes rather than attempting to pick winners by building their own “film studio campus.” Clearly, nobody who is willing to risk their own money has put forward the idea, so ATEED’s assertion that building a school will create jobs is simply superfluous. They are essentially asking businesses already providing jobs to subsidise something they think might – taking a punt on that with other people’s money.

Should a private company put forward a request for consent to build a film studio and campus in the area, then I have no problem with that. If a private company has applied for permission to build a film school, then they have clearly done their homework, researched whether there is sufficient demand for a school and determined they have a good chance of making a profit building one.

If however a bureaucracy is the only organisation putting forward such an idea, expecting ratepayers to subsidise their losses, then it is likely building one will only result in a subsidised white elephant.

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Stephen Berry is Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Councillor of Albany in 2016

UPDATE: As I’m finding myself saying increasingly, David Seymour gets it right:

A perfect reminder of why Auckland Council should sell both ATEED and Auckland Council Property Ltd.
    Auckland Council has too many competing objectives. A piece of land that should be developed by the private sector has not one, but two arms of Council scrapping over it.
    On one hand, Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) wants to build a film studio. What has the film industry done wrong to deserve Auckland Council’s intrusion?
    On the other hand, the Council’s property arm wants to build houses on the land. What possible advantage could Auckland Council have at producing houses people want at an affordable price?
    The Council should stick to its knitting: providing essential infrastructure at an affordable price so Aucklanders can get on with building their city.
    Somehow I doubt Aucklanders paying 15% rates were hoping to become part investors in a film studio…

Job losses predicted at Auckland Council

Guest post by Stephen Berry

After Auckland Council’s narrow passing of the Auckland Long Term Plan, I predict several job losses to occur at Auckland Council. That’s eleven jobs to be precise, right about October 2016.”

That’s the Mayor and the ten councillors who supported for the huge rates hike that underpins the Long Term Plan. They will suffer the wrath of voters in next year’s election, with a large swing toward toward fiscal responsibility and few of the councillors supported Len Brown surviving.

Affordable Auckland will be helping voters find replacements for those councillors by putting up candidates in several of the wards occupied by councillors supporting the rates increases.

Candidates from Affordable Auckland have been announced for the Mayoralty, Albany, Waitakere and Albany will several more to be revealed.

We will be presenting a plan for future rates increases to be capped at the level of inflation, for council spending to be restricted to the core functions specified by the Local Government Act, and for housing made affordable by streamlining the Council consents process.

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Stephen Berry is 2016 Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor and Albany ward

PS: The "Terrible Ten" are:

• Len Brown
• Arthur Anae
• Bill Cashmore
• Linda Cooper
• Chris Darby
• Alf Filipaina
• Mike Lee
• Calum Penrose
• Wayne Walker
• Penny Webster

Auckland Council’s “Long Term Plan” must be stopped

Guest post by Stephen Berry of Affordable Auckland 

All Auckland councillors vote today on the council’s “Long Term Plan.” All Auckland councillors should vote against it.

The proposed rates increase in the plan is intolerable and will hurt every Aucklander, whether property owner or renter.

Rates must be kept at the level of inflation and no more. To do this, the Council must make changes. Spending $100,000 on ping pong tables is just one of the many stupid decisions being made by our elected representatives this year.  This stupidity is the reason Aucklanders face higher rates and increased rents for the next year.

Rates increases should be held to the level of inflation. This would be entirely possible if the Council stuck to its core responsibilities such as waste management and footpaths.

The first order of business today should be a vote by Council to ditch the Long Term Plan. Second should be the passing of an entrenched bylaw specifying the Council only be permitted to fund the activities required of it by section 11a of the Local Government Act.

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Stephen Berry is the 2016 Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor and Councillor for Albany Ward.

Come and protest the rates rises!

You may have noticed that rates in Auckland are going up, up, up -- and then up again some more.

You may not have known however that there will be a public meeting next week to oppose the iniquitous rates increases ...

AUCKLAND RATES MEETING JUNE 10

Grey Lynn resident Ray Calver is part of a group of concerned ratepayers organising the Auckland Rates Increases Public Meeting to be held next Wednesday, June 10. There is widespread anger at the imposition of an average 9.9% rates increases across Auckland. It particularly hurts those in poorer parts of Auckland where residents of Mangere face increases of 16.9%.

Mr. Calver says

The purpose of this meeting is to give Aucklanders an opportunity to voice their opposition to the increases and also to plan how they would like to make this opposition known. The meeting will be addressed by several speakers who have a variety of ideas on how ratepayers can take a stand against the Council’s rates plan.

The meeting will be held at Mt. Eden War Memorial Hall 487 Dominion Rd next Wednesday June 10, commencing at 7:30pm. Confirmed speakers are

•         Stephen Berry – Affordable Auckland Mayoral candidate
•         Cameron Brewer – Orakei Councillor
•         Jo Holmes – Auckland Ratepayer’s Alliance
•         Damien Light – United Future
•         Bill Raynor – Grey Power
•         David Seymour – Act Epsom MP
•         Penny Bright – Mayoral candidate

So come along and help start a reasoned protest against the unreasonable. "The meeting organisers and I look forward to hearing how those who have attended wish to proceed,”says Mr Calver.

Liar Len’s dirty rotten trick [updated]

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Many of us were surprised yesterday when we saw the 9.5% rates increase figure splashed across the front of the newspapers, but in hindsight it is easy to see the path of Len Brown’s dirty rotten trick.

The voters of Auckland have been cynically played by Mayor Brown, from the 2013 election up until today.

The first trick occurred before Brown was re-elected as Mayor, when he promised voters that the average rates increase would not exceed 2.5%. The Mayor made that promise with absolutely no intention of sticking to it.

In November 2014 the Mayor changed his support from a 2.5% increase to a 3.5% increase within a week, saying at the Governing Body meeting, “I haven’t been able to find the savings to deliver on (the original plan). If the community doesn’t like the 3.5 they’ll say it.”  The Mayor came to this new rates increase figure after dangling a deceptive spending plan in front of voters that attracted the right sort of supportive feedback. We now know it is the same tactic he has used this year.

As the Council sought submissions on a new Long Term Plan in early 2015, they were presented with two different transport options; one being bigger and more expensive. Fifty percent of the 27,000 submissions showed support for the more expensive plan. [Just as surveys  regularly demonstrate voters wanting more spending, but lower taxes – Ed.]

Funding options for Len’s big plan included the option of tolls, which also had wide support.  But this was a red herring engineered to make it look like Len had all of Auckland’s support. He presented a high-spending plan to be funded in a manner the Council has no power to introduce, and which central Government has made crystal clear is not going to happen. And then he claimed support for the spending that supposedly sanctioned.

So then last week, on the back of this, the Mayor unveiled a plan for “keeping rates at 2.5%,” but placing on top of that a “targeted transport levy” of 4% – in other words, a total rates increase of 6.5%.

It was immediately obvious that the entire submissions process had been a way for Len Brown to present a mandate for increasing rates far beyond what he had initially promised. He ensured most submissions would support a plan for a big spending transport proposal so he could then pretend he was “obligated” to ramp up rates.

But wait. There’s more!

Not content with a 6.5% rates increase, a combination of lower business rates and higher council valuations caused by the overheated property market now means the total average rates increase will be in the region of 9.5%.

Len Brown has played the people of Auckland like puppets with manipulative games of deceit.  Now Auckland’s ratepayers need to tell the Mayor this increase is unacceptable and force him into a back down.

It is clear that 2016 should be Len Brown’s last as Mayor of Auckland.

Let’s make it so.

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Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and Candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany Councillor in 2016. He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

UPDATE:

It gets worse.  The Herald reports:  “Auckland councillors have voted 15-7 for a 9.9 per cent rates increase for households from July.”

Yes, that’s right:

9.9!

That’s the average rates rise. David Farrar has the breakdown of which ratepayers are most kicked in the teeth, from biggest increase to smallest:

• Mangere-Otahuhu 16.9%
• Kaipatiki 16.1%
• Whau 15.7%
• Albert-Eden 14.9%
• Maungakiekie-Tamaki 14.9%
• Puketepapa 14.5%
• Otara-Papatoetoe 12.2%
• Henderson-Massey 11.6%
• Howick 9.9%
• Upper Harbour 9.9%
• Manurewa 9.5%
• Orakei 8.5%
• Devonport-Takapuna 7.9%
• Waitemata 7.7%
• Hibiscus and Bays 6.3%
• Waitakere Ranges 5.4%
• Franklin 4.4%
• Papakura 3.3%
• Rodney -1.4%
• Waiheke -2.8%
• Great Barrier -13%

And the 13 council-scum who voted for you to be their milch cow (only 9 voted against):

• Len Brown
• Penny Hulse
• Penny Webster
• Arthur Anae
• Cathy Casey
• Bill Cashmore
• Linda Cooper
• Chris Darby
• Alf Filipaina
• Chris Fletcher
• Mike Lee
• Calum Penrose
• Wayne Walker

Why not give the bastards a call and tell them what you think.

Council blackmails government

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Auckland Council’s attempt to block the creation of three Special Housing Areas can only be described as blackmail, to which the government should start playing hardball.

The council has rejected plans to set up three Special Housing Areas in Huapai because it expects central government to assist the funding of transport infrastructure to connect them. But it is not the government’s but the Council’s responsibility to fund the costs of connecting new housing areas to the power, water and road networks.

The developers of housing areas actually pay for the roads and water pipes so half the job of the Council is already done for them. If they are a bit short, then it is perfectly reasonable to borrow money, by issuing bonds for example, to fund the connection of the new project to existing utilities, and then pay it off with the increased rates revenue that will result.  [The Texas MUD model is one such that could be emulated – Ed.]

Part of the problem is that Auckland Council doesn’t restrict its function to its core role, which makes it harder to pay for the things Council actually exists to fund. Right now for example Len Brown is considering a $190 million wish list he has been given by the Independent Maori Statutory Board. This request includes funding for economic development, education and development of iwi assets. Were the Council sticking to its core responsibilities, Brown would be giving the Maori Statutory Board a simple “no.”

I suspect the real reason the Council is fighting back against these Special Housing Areas is because of the compact city ideology of Penny Hulse. Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that restricting Auckland’s growth is causing stratospheric price inflation, Ms. Hulse keeps her head in the undeveloped land of outer Auckland. [Another reason is she sees a chance of exerting political pressure to make taxpayers begin footing the bill for Len’s train sets – Ed.]

Minister Nick Smith says the Government has the power to issue its own consents for the Special Housing Areas. If the Council continues its game of blackmail, then I certainly hope he does.

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Len Brown pulls the knife out

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Len Brown has saved his biggest dirty trick for yesterday’s Governing Body meeting with his proposal to add a 2% transport levy on top of the crippling rates increases already inflicted on Aucklanders.

It seems the Mayor has been hatching this trick for quite some time by building public support for an expensive transport plan. Once he has obtained 50% support of submitters for the most expensive option in the Long Term Plan, he has pulled a knife from behind his back in the form of an extra transport levy to fund it.

Essentially what has happened now is that the Mayor has turned his promise for an average 2.5% rate increase, broken when he voted for a 3.5% average increase, into a whopping 5.5% rates increase. This transport proposal is the country’s lamest magic trick.

The 2% transport levy is proposed to remain in place until 2018 when the Government is hoped to allow the Council to implement tolls on Auckland roads. Essentially the Mayor’s plan is to keep hoping the National Government eventually gets voted out of office so he can implement tolls. Considering he has no chance of surviving the 2016 election, this plan isn’t a very good one.

The Council needs to be a bit more open minded in choosing how to fund capital projects rather than taxing and borrowing. With the Government ruling out the possibility of charging tolls, the Council needs to look at options such as obtaining private sector involvement and selling assets that are a lower priority than its proposed transport solutions.

Repeatedly grabbing from property owners can no longer be considered an option.

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Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and Candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany Councillor in 2016. He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

Mt Eden access debate descends into lunacy

Guest post by Stephen Berry

If the idea of banning vehicles from the Mt. Eden summit doesn’t sound crazy enough, then listening to the members of the Maunga Authority discuss the practicalities of such a move verges on total lunacy.

On Monday night the authority members voted unanimously to ban vehicle and cycle access to the top of Mt Eden, but in true political style has now deferred a final decision pending discussion on just how vehicle access can be prevented.”

It has been found that the cost of installing iron gates with electronic key pad or swipe card access will be in excess of $100,000, not including on-going maintenance costs. One option involves the issuing of an access code via a call centre which would change every seven days. Another option would see those with mobility issues being given swipe cards that would cost $20 each.

The banning of vehicles would also require the construction of extra carparks, with the existing ones moved further down the cone, and Puhi Huia Rd reconfigured to hold a completely inadequate 30 vehicles.

When these sorts of conversations are taking place between elected councillors and the racially appointed Tamaki Collective, doesn’t it demonstrate the idea is insane?

North Shore councillor Chris Darby somehow manages to go one step even further into the asylum by being  so “dismayed” by the idea of iron gates he would prefer “moving bollards.”

I am equally dismayed. I’m dismayed that six elected representatives could be so blasé when it comes to spending what will become hundreds of thousands of ratepayer dollars simply to prevent Aucklanders from enjoying one of the city’s natural treasures!

And through all of this, the ratepayer funded Maunga Authority still does not consult with ratepayers and the chairman of the Authority gutlessly refuses to talk to media.”

A final decision is now expected to be made in May. The elected representatives on the authority are

• Councillor Chris Darby (North Shore): (021) 284 2888, [email protected]
• Councillor Christine Fletcher (Eden-Albert-Roskill), (027) 276 0013,              
                                                                                                          [email protected]
• Councillor Bill Cashmore (Franklin), (021) 283 3355, [email protected]
• Local Board member Kit Parkinson (Orakei), 027 274 9688, [email protected]
• Local Board member Glenda Fryer (Albert-Eden), (027) 272 0816, [email protected]
• Local Board member Simon Randall (Maungakiekie-Tamaki), 021 286 7999,
                                                                                                                 [email protected]

I suggest you talk to them. And soon.

RELATED: Keep vehicle access to Mt Eden – Berry – VOXY

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Stephen Berry is the Leader of Affordable Auckland, and a candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany ward, 2016. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

More intervention not the solution to housing crisis

Guest post by Stephen Berry

A thinly-veiled call by the Reserve Bank to examine the tax status of property investors is not the solution to fixing the crisis of housing hyperinflation.

What is making housing unaffordable for increasing numbers of Aucklanders is precisely the intervention by government, councils and the Reserve Bank itself.”

Auckland Council is one of the main contributors to the unaffordability crisis affecting the property market. The refusal of the Council to abolish the Metropolitan Urban Limit – the planner-imposed ring-fence around the city—means that in a city with plentiful land there is a shortage of Auckland land for Auckland housing.

From Warkworth to Pukekohe: it’s not land that’s in short supply, it’s the supply of building land that’s restricted…

On top of this it costs, on average, $33,000 to get a consent from Auckland Council to build each home.

Central Government is also making the crisis worse with its efforts to help people into the market. Giving larger grants to first-home buyers just makes the problem worse. This adds petrol to the fire by increasing the number of participants in the market without increasing supply.

Let’s also not forget what happened last time the Reserve Bank dabbled in the housing market. Implementing Loan-to-Value Ratios made absolutely zero impact on house prices, but shut out young families and those on low incomes.

Affordable Auckland’s solution to the housing crisis is to deregulate the market and remove the regulatory distortions causing inflation. The party says the Metropolitan Urban Limit needs to be abolished; the consents process streamlined; increased density permitted where appropriate; and the costs of dealing with the Council severely reduced.

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Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and a Candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany Councillor in 2016. He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

RELATED READING:

• “Sprawl” versus “intensification”
• Will the Housing Accord cure the land banks?
• Government finally plans to address unaffordable housing. But…
• Unaffordable housing? No wonder!
• This is Auckland’s future: Mansion or crack shack?
• Restricting growth is neither smart, nor cheap

Dangerous Murmurings Pulse from Hulse

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland 

Anyone who reads between the lines of politician gobbledygook should be very worried by comments about rental tenancy tenure made by Auckland’s Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse .

Following the release of the ‘Residential Mobility’ report from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which shows high levels of residential movement in young families,  Ms. Hulse says she is “disturbed” by findings that “a high proportion of our most vulnerable, being children, have unstable accommodation in the first years of their lives.”

This situation is not acceptable on any level [she says]. Auckland Council’s Housing Action Plan identifies the need for more secure rental tenure as a key priority. We are calling on the government to urgently address this issue and put some options to the community on how this can be achieved.

Comments like that clearly indicate Hulse wishes to further regulate the housing and rental market – that she harbours a barely-concealed desire to write another volume of ill-begotten regulations making life worse for all involved.

Should go down that path, she would effectively be condemning her low-income constituency to homelessness.

The more rules that are put in place to supposedly protect renters actually add costs for landlords, which result in higher rents and fewer rentals. If legal minimums are implemented for periods of tenancy, for example, then landlords will become more risk-averse in dealing with young and low-income applicants, making it far harder for them to rent a house.

Policies supported by the Len Brown-nosing Hulse have already shut the young and poor out of buying property. Now she clearly intends to shut them out of the rental market too.

Stephen Berry believes that with the waning of Len Brown’s political career, Penny Hulse is now the greatest political threat to the freedoms and wallets of Aucklanders.

Brown knows his career is over in 2016 and that is why his behaviour is increasingly erratic. Hulse on the other hand clearly has plans to succeed Brown as Mayor, which is very concerning.

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Stephen Berry was the Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor in the 2013 election. He finished in third place.
www.affordable.org.nz
www.facebook.com/affordablecity

So, who would you choose?

So, who would you have banished from New Zealand this year?

[Hat tip Stephen Berry]

Len Brown Stand Down March: Media Manipulation Analysis

Vinny Eastwood and Stephen Berry analyse Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March,

a big success according to its organisers and in a way this is evidenced by the enormous criticism thrown at it by desperate left wing commentators and woefully inaccurate reporting by the establishment media.
To counter this propaganda we are releasing a critical analysis of a number of these news stories and blogs so that the public may be made aware of the lengths these scumbaggery filth will go to protect the corruption, financial incompetence and lies of Auckland Mayor Len Brown.

See if they make their case:

Democracy Lacking at Auckland Council

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Auckland resident Rick Splinter has had his request for speaking rights at the Governing Body meeting of 27 February 2014 declined. The request has been declined by Deputy Mayor and Len Brown toady Penny Hulse.

What democracy do we really have in Auckland politics if a private individual cannot have a mere five minutes to address the Council and make his opinions known?

The official reason for the application to speak being declined was delivered by Governance Support Manager Jason Marris. It reads: