Council Development Levy Concerns

I have created this table to illustrate different Development Levies charged by District Councils, and to compare them with approaches adopted by Auckland Council....

The reason for identifying sub areas like: "Bethlehem, Paraparaumu, Taupo Town" etc in the planning for the relevant districts, is to comply with the provisions of the Local Government Act which require that Development Levies are to cover the costs of infrastructure, required to meet the needs of new development, in those areas of the city or district.

In the days of North Shore City Council, following due diligence of Council staff, development levies were calculated for different parts of North Shore urban area. The figures varied across the city. This reflected the uneven development of infrastructure that had occurred in the past, and related to future budgetted infrastructure projects planned to meet the needs of future growth. One effect of this approach - which is required by the LGA by the way - is that new housing development in parts of the city that are already well provided for with infrastructure are less expensive to develop. This acted as an incentive to more intensively develop parts of the city that had infrastructure with capacity to service the needs of more dwellings.

On a matter of detail - the "transport" figure in the table for Auckland Council includes public transport as well as roading infrastructure. You have to say this is a very blunt figure. It suggests that in every part of Auckland, a new home being built requires new transport infrastructure to the value of $4,969. No matter whether the home is in the CBD (where we want more homes and where there's roading and PT services for Africa), or Westgate (which needs new local roads and bus services as it's greenfield). How fair is that? In other parts of NZ, and Auckland's four cities pre-amalgamation, development levies reflected these very real differences. But not the new Auckland Council....

Auckland Council has adopted a very simple approach to development levies for water and wastewater infrastructure. Watercare will simply charge any and all developments a lump sum of $7935/housing unit for both services. Connection fees are additional. The $7935 is to cover the costs of future infrastructure requirements. There is no variation across the Auckland region - despite the fact that infrastructure for water and wastewater varies considerably across the region - both in terms of capacity and quality. For example, North Shore residents have paid for a substantial increase in the capacity of its Rosedale Wastewater Treatment Plant - while the Mangere Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) is periodically at the limits of what it is permitted to discharge into Manukau Harbour. To charge every new development the same amount ignores these variations.

It also ignores the very real differences in infrastructure service costs for new development which is close to existing sewer and water mains, compared with the costs for new development in greenfield areas at the edge of Auckland's metropolitan area.

The fineprint of Watercare's planning appears to include the capital cost of what is known as the "Western Interceptor". This gargantuan cave under Auckland budgetted at almost $1 billion is to store, and to transport stormwater and sewage overflows to Mangere WWTP (which is often at capacity on a wet day). This storage can be used to extend the life of Mangere - by allowing managers to slow the flows, by storing contaminated water on its way to Mangere, WWTP and then pumping it for treatment. But at enormous cost. In part this is a stormwater project - though super city amalgamation split stormwater away from Watercare, and gave it to Auckland Council to manage. Not sure - then - how the funding will work. Who will pay?

While the Auckland Council is seeking to harmonise payments and costs across the region - the approach taken by Auckland Council and Watercare is not fair, does not account of regional variations, and does not take accounts of investments made by ratepayers in recent years. It also does not appear to be consistent with the intent of the LGA which is built around the idea of there being a nexus between the costs of planned infratstructure for an area of the city, and the development levies payable for new development, in that area of the city.

In other words the legislation provides for the fact that some areas are more expensive to develop than others. There is a bluntness about Council's blanket development levy regime that suggests laziness and reluctance to engage with the diversity and difference that is Auckland.