Mayoralty Questionnaire:
1.) How would you sum up the role of Mayor of Wellington?
As Mayor of Wellington, my most important role will be as a guardian of the long-term interests of our diverse residents.
A good Mayor must listen widely, discuss rationally and then lead decisively.
I look forward to chairing Council and working co-operatively with other elected members and community leaders and fulfilling the various official duties as your city’s public servant.
2.) What will be the main messages of your campaign for the Mayoralty?
3.) What do you think are the big issues facing Wellingtonians over the next term and what will you be doing about them if you become Mayor?
- Co-operation or amalgamation?
After the attacks to Auckland’s and Canterbury’s democracy, there will be pressure for Wellington to amalgamate with Hutt and Porirua Councils. The current mayors are discussing regional governance before the public has had any input. I would open up the debate.
I chair the Regional Waste Forum which includes councils, community groups and business. It’s a great forum for sharing improved ways of doing our core business. We can share more services and information with other Councils – it’s wasteful to have separate software systems for rating and GIS but the decision-making on District Plan rules, rates, fees and policies must be made locally.
- Transport – more intelligent than tunnels!
To avoid grid-lock, we need a change in priorities. I’d promote a car-free Golden Mile at peak hours and lunch time. Instead of funnelling more cars into limited parks, I will advance light rail to Newtown, then to Kilbirnie Indoor Stadium and the Airport. Meanwhile bus passengers need better shelters, more frequent services, weekend services and real time information. Light rail is cheaper than doubling tunnels and putting in a flyover at the Basin Reserve. Other candidates want to get rid of buses in the Golden Mile or wait decades before giving buses any more priority.
Wellington’s walkability is celebrated but not encouraged enough. Wait times at traffic lights are too long for people on foot and encourage risky behaviour.
More people will cycle if we make it safer. I’m already on the steering group for the Great Harbour Way which sees better cycle and walking all the way along the coast. I’ve already worked with other councillors to put in a decent budget for strategic cycle routes from Porirua through Tawa and then to Johnsonville.
Delivery vans and trades vehicles are essential to Wellington and will travel more reliably with less congestion. While many of us need cars for specific journeys, I’ll promote car share systems and car pooling as economical options.
- Employment
Jobs should be fulfilling as well as financially adequate. The Wellington Arts scene is strong in performance, visual and digital work. Creativity needs to be fostered in other businesses too. Creative HQ was set up while I was on the board of Positively Wellington Business. I look forward to being on the governance group of Grow Wellington. I fully support their focus on Clean Technology as a sunrise industry including the export potential of marine energy technology. There are local jobs in refurbishing and recycling but we won’t be macraméing our own computers so some high value, low impact trade is essential. I’ve supported a fuel technology company to explore local possibilities that could dramatically reduce particulate emissions from diesel engines in Wellington.
- Reconnecting neighbourhoods
People value the different nature of different suburbs. Heritage tells the history of who has lived here before. Council must support communities to help themselves with community centres, libraries and local parks, playgrounds and modest grants. Working together on gardens, painting murals or helping at the nearby hospice are all ways of building community. When people know each other in a street, a suburb, a city, people are more resilient to all sorts of emergencies – climate change or flu or an earthquake.
4.) What is your view on the privatisation of Wellington’s water?
I strongly support public ownership of water, the necessary infrastructure and its management. Water is a precious resource and must remain in public hands.
Councils must work together with households, businesses, schools and our own departments to reduce leaks, design low impact housing developments, install rainwater tanks and advocate for changes to the building code so we can live within our ecological limits.
We can stabilise water usage at today’s levels or less with positive education, technical support and intelligent campaigns.
I do not support compulsory domestic meters nor damming the Whakatikei River.
5.) What is the best way forward to increase Wellington’s productivity, create jobs and increase wages?
As an ex-IBM employee, I support fast broadband and Wi-Fi enabling large and small businesses to be better connected to their customers and suppliers.
Education is key to improving productivity and finding new solutions to tricky problems of engineering, medicine and clean manufacture. I’d ensure close liaison with all the local tertiary institutions: Weltec, Whitireia, Massey, Otago and Victoria. There may bead chance to redefine older inner city offices into student apartments.
Climate Change action can provide benefits. There are new jobs in insulation and high tech energy. Revegetation of our hills supports carbon absorption. Electric vehicles are part of the solution but electric trolley buses, trams, trains and bicycles are more important than a few electric cars.
Tourism doesn’t create many high-value jobs so although it supports existing attractions, it creates other pressures do I don’t see doubling passenger numbers through the Wellington airport as a good measure of increased productivity or wage growth.
Higher wages are important if a family is in poverty but after a certain level, people seek fulfilment, attractive surroundings and the opportunity to pursue their cultural, sporting or voluntary activities.
The emerging domestic economies of home-grown food, vintage clothing and refurbished furniture are under-valued by traditional economists. Wellington’s resurgence of small businesses serving ethical consumers is at the vanguard of a world-wide trend. Streamlining Council processes, without eliminating our function to protect the residents, will help small businesses in particular. The ETS implementation means Wellington businesses can be at the forefront of emissions mitigation.
6.) Do you think current council processes are transparent enough?
No.
Sometimes Council seems to keep asking the public the same question and not listening. Repeating consultation, e.g. buildings near Waitangi Park, alienates the public. If we are consulting on more detail while the main decision has been made, we should be clear. Some of the long term planning is improving like the community consultation on the Kilbirnie Town Centre plan.
While people are welcome to come in and comment or participate in public there is much more room for conversations with people round a table so different ideas can be teased out. There is much wisdom in Wellingtonians that we miss out on by not asking people to have a say in their time and place, rather than asking them to respond to a fully formed proposal.
The Mayor and Councillors must be willing to go out to public meetings and engage with people in their own organisations and suburbs, not always expect the busy public to come to us.
The WCC website needs a big revamp so people can see where decisions fit in and who has already been involved/ made comments/brought up ideas. While all reports and minutes, including voting records. are on-line e.g. http://www.wellington.govt.nz/haveyoursay/meetings/committee/Strategy_and_Policy/2009/15Oct0915/pdf/10_15.pdf , they are not easy to find.
I support webcasting of Council meetings although it may not have a huge audience!
7.) What are your views on the current rates policy?
It is not clearly articulated so not well understood yet. Hardly anyone seems to know that when someone goes for a swim or a visit to the art gallery, the ratepayer is picking up most of the cost. The business community pays for about half the costs of the library, because it’s deemed to be a benefit to the whole of Wellington.
Most activities benefit many individuals and sectors. We have to decide who pays for each activity. Recreation activities must be affordable so I support the current subsidies from rates so books can be borrowed for free and all children can learn to swim, for example.
I agree that downtown commercial properties should pay 100% of certain activities such as tourism promotion and that commercial properties in general should pay a higher rate per dollar than domestic properties to cover the costs imposed by visitors, workers coming in from outside Wellington and the fact that some rates can be set against tax. I don’t wish the general rate differential to go further than a ratio of 2.8 to 1. Ten years ago this was 7:1.
We must try to keep rates affordable by involving communities in designing their own solutions. Community care of some reserves has shown how a greater connection with nature improves the environment, builds social networks and adds resources that Council rates don’t cover.
Many people are happy for their rates to be used to pay for community facilities but there are also people on fixed incomes who find any increase difficult.
The best thing is that rates depend on the capital value of a property so in general people with more assets pay more than people who are struggling. Rates are almost impossible to avoid so altogether they are a progressive tax. The share of rates form a decreasing part of the average household budget compared to taxes or electricity!
8.) Are you happy with the rate of development in Wellington and the standard of architecture?
The focus of development in places with good public transport and community facilities makes sense to me. Any new subdivisions that are far from shops, bus stops, schools and facilities are much less desirable but unfortunately some places already have residential zoning. Downtown, I love the fact that more people are living in the city centre so it’s not dead after 5:30. I don’t think Wellington is at its carrying capacity yet but we must ensure that we live within our energy, transport and water limits! Green buildings are often attractive and our development contributions policy could encourage them more.
The standard of architecture varies immensely. The changes to infill rules which I helped lead have made some of the “nasty little boxes” harder to build. Guidelines for active edges (windows/activity not blank walls) mean that some of the worst examples are behind us now e.g. the Woolworth’s façade in Kilbirnie, Briscoe’s façade in Taranaki Street.
The Central Library, the Newlands Community Centre and the Karori Library are good examples of public architecture. Short term thinking’s responsible for shoddy buildings with a short life. It is difficult to legislate for beauty! One thing we can do is preserve the heritage of existing lovely or quirky buildings so I’m a strong supporter of the move to heritage areas as well as individual heritage buildings.
Greater density of living must be balanced with good quality public space – the waterfront (free from more solid buildings by Waitangi Park), paved areas and green open space including better access (signs and paths) to what we have already got in the Town Belt e.g. Kelburn Park, Charles Plimmer Park,
9.) In one paragraph explain what you, as Mayor will do for the city of Wellington:
As Mayor I will draw upon the wisdom of Wellingtonians, the expertise of Council staff and the skills of the elected councillors to ensure this city works for you, the people of Wellington and will continue to do so for generations to come. I will make the Council the central place for honest conversations about our city, where bright ideas can be explored and where we are all free to contribute to a harmonious and modestly prosperous city. I promise to do my best, and to continue planting in community gardens, cycling and walking, thinking globally and shopping locally!
Thank you very much for taking the time to be a part of FishHead’s August/September issue.
Ben Christie
Editor,
FishHead Magazine