March 18, 2020 10:00am by David Farrar

WCC wants near 10% rates rises

Rates in Wellington city could be bumped up by 9.2 per cent as coronavirus is set to have a negative affect on local households and businesses.
In Wellington City Council’s annual plan agenda, two options were put forward to councillors who will be making decisions on the plan on Thursday.
The options would be considered with coronavirus in mind, as it “provides uncertainty and will have a negative economic impact on households and businesses in the year ahead”.
There was a “high resilience” option of 9.2 per cent which included additional funding for Wellington Water Limited and Te Ngākau Civic Square while another option, without this extra funding, would be 7.9 per cent.

Both options are unacceptable.

Businesses are facing plummeting income. Families have huge uncertainty about their incomes as jobs are at risk.

WCC needs to live within its means and come up with a Budget with a rates rise no more than inflation.

They could start by suspending work on the convention centre, as pretty obviously won’t be any need for one for a while.