25 September 2011

Dr. Grant Gillon, Member Kaipatiki Board

King-Hit proposed for Local boards.

“I am still in shock after learning of the proposal to fund local boards' services by targeted rates" said Kaipatiki Local Board member Grant Gillon today. The latest rating proposal is for local board to fund services from targeted rates yet even a quick glance shows up the inequities of that system.

"Poorer suburbs will never be able to catch up with their more wealthy neighbours under this system,” said Dr. Gillon. “If we take the former, North Shore City Council area as an example; millions of dollars were poured into the new city centre of Albany which no longer features on Auckland Council's list of regional centres. This means that a board area such as Kaipatiki would need to drastically increase rates to provide a similar level of service that Kaipatiki residents had already helped fund for over a decade.

In addition, Auckland Council's own figures place Kaipatiki as having the highest level of userpays for services out of every board area in Auckland (the next highest is Otara-Papatoetoe and the least seems to be Upper Harbour) so Auckland Council is already charging Kaipatiki residents for services which other areas receive out of the General Rate. But, the proposed move means that Kaipatiki residents will also be amongst the board areas worse off compared to many (former) Auckland City board areas that will be better off by such a change in rating formula.

“Further, primarily residential boards such as Kaipatiki do not have the buffer that high valued commercial properties provide for such targeted rates such as the inner city of Auckland and Newmarket. The full burden of costs falls on the residential ratepayer. But, the main difficulty comes in the inequities of such a proposal. A swimming pool costs as much in Kaipatiki to operate as it does in Takapuna or the Central City. Yet the demographics are very different.

The average household income in Kaipatiki is only $67,351 compared to Devonport-Takapuna of $81,981 (2006 Statistics NZ latest figures retrieved from www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz). Therefore the cost of a targeted rate is felt more severely in one suburbs compared to a wealthier one and yet the service is the same. Such disparities provide disincentives to fund projects in lower demographic areas and so the provision of services is sure to reduce over time leading to greater disparities.

Kaipatiki's capital budget is already well below what many other Boards are enjoying and this will be a further blow to a community that has been overlooked under previous administrations.

Kaipatiki's budget sits at only $6.41 per person compared with the allocation to Devonport- Takapuna of $42.91 and Henderson-Massey of $254.52. This action will further increase the disparity.

And this shock proposal follows hard on the heels of finding out about Takapuna's capital investment programme of nearly $500million with much of that strip-mined from the budgets of other Local Boards in the Northern area such as Upper Harbour and Kaipatiki. The amalgamation was much about empowering local communities not about entrenching past inequities.

The wealth creation of the world's best city must be dispersed amongst the communities within based on need not on existing wealth.

ENDS

© Scoop Media