Mayoral Proposal for Auckland's ten-year budget 2018 - 2028

As part of the process to adopt Auckland's new Long Term Plan, council's ten-year budget for 2018 - 2028, last week Phil Goff released his Mayoral Proposal, which outlines his priority areas for the budget.

What are the key features of the proposal for the city centre?

1. Transformation and Transport
   1. The city centre is identified as a priority – and council have previously published a video explaining the importance of the City Centre for the region. This is likely to include funding $220m of public infrastructure projects in the city centre to be completed in time for the Americas Cup and APEC, both happening in 2021
   2. The future of the ports within the city centre will be explored within the term of the LTP, with a study about the upper North Island ports and supply chains currently underway
   3. In terms of transport, light rail connecting the city centre to the airport is identified as a priority. A review of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project is currently underway and will be reported back in March next year, which should align with decisions around funding for light rail within the next ten years
2. Homelessness
   1. Council intend to continue to make a $500k per annum contribution to the Housing First programme which is an important part of ending homelessness in the city. This programme directly benefits those homeless located in the city centre
3. Funding
   1. Introduction of a regional fuel tax to fund transport investment activities. The proposal is that a regional fuel tax will replace the Interim Transport Levy (ITL) as long as legislation can be passed in time. Most of the transport programme will fund committed projects, such as the City Rail Link (CRL) and renewals. Nonetheless, the Mayor’s new priorities include light rail from the central city to airport; additional electric trains; switching from diesel to electric buses; electrification of fleet vehicles; and walking and cycling improvements
   2. General rates rise at an average of 2.5% for the first two years and 3.5% for each year after that, balancing the need to increase infrastructure spending with the need to keep rate increases low and reasonable
   3. The Long Term Differential Strategy, paused last year, will resume to reduce the differential between business and residential rates (currently businesses pay 2.73 times more rates)
   4. The Interim Transport Levy will be replaced by the regional fuel tax, which will more fairly levy users according to their level of road use 
   5. Changes to the rating of the online accommodation sector so that online commercial operations running from residential properties in certain areas would also be paying the accommodation levy. This would give greater equity for businesses within city centre.

Providing feedback on the Long Term Plan

The long term plan, including many of these elements, will be consulted in late February and March. We will let businesses know how to get involved in providing feedback to Council as well as help inform Heart of the City‘s submission. If you have any questions on this, please contact us.

See the full Mayoral Proposal for Auckland's ten-year budget 2018 - 2028 here.