Council Planning and Finance Committee

Welcome up our first submitter, Marge Britt Engelhardt. I'm saying that right. You've got 5 minutes. You're welcome to take a seat or stand at the podium there. And just, if you've got— if you want to leave some time for questions, leave that within the 5 minutes as well. Thank you.

Kia ora koutou, ko Maybret Enkelhardt tōkou ingoa. Firstly, I'll start with a point of democracy, given that some councillors have publicly criticised some council staff for being anti-democratic. Democracy is about listening to all voices, listening and respecting the views of the majority, not just the loudest voices or those with the most resources. It means not continuing to revisiting decisions that have already gone through extensive public consultations, which is going to increasingly disenfranchise those voices that are least likely to engage to start off with because an influential minority do not like the decisions. I moved to Wellington, or Pōneke, just over 10 years ago. I really loved that city then. Yes, there are infrastructure and other deficits from many very historic poor decisions and accountability. This does not mean that the council cannot and should not cut some costs and raise new revenue, and I support many of those initiatives. However, there needs to be an investment, not a short-term budget view to it. There's got to be a balance of addressing past neglect with investing to make a viable future city. More consideration should also be considering to the economic position of many of our constituents. Some of them may need a longer period of time to be able to cover costs. There also needs to be more evidence-based, more investment, future-focused, and less reactive and less squeaky wheel solutions. Need to invest in people infrastructure first and foremost. People— Poneke is at a turning point. Around the world, the evidence is really clear. The most successful cities invest in people-first infrastructure, reliable public transport, safe cycling networks, walkable neighbourhoods, affordable houses, and vibrant public spaces. This is likely to— more likely to attract young people, family, tourists, entrepreneurs than cities designed mostly around cars. The evidence is clear that these become congested, pollutive, expensive and less attractive to live in. Safe and connected cycleways and walkways are not anti-business. They support local business and the future by increasing foot traffic, accessibility, and livability. People choose where they live today, or at least a number of people have choices—entrepreneurs, youth, skilled people, families. They will continue to exercise these choices based on the decisions we make today. Back to my earlier point about being future-focused but yet also recognising the economic realities. Short-term accommodation operators should pay not a proportionate rate but the full commercial rate because they get all the benefits of commercial business but often without the same contribution in terms of taxes, jobs, and currently rates. There is significant evidence that they contribute to housing shortage shortages and affordability pressures. Look at Queenstown, look at Tasmania. I could give example after example. Too many homes are being removed from the long-term rental market for short-term profit while the wider community bears the social and economic context. Kaanakee needs long-term and diversity of residents, thriving neighbourhoods and sustainability businesses more than it needs unchecked growth in unfair short-term accommodation options. Going back to again my point about investment versus short-term reactive thinking, vibrant future-focused cities invest in climate resilience and emissions reduction. Ignoring climate realities now in 2026 only creates larger costs later. Aotearoa and Pōneke are renowned for paying for recovery and putting only a pitiful amount of money in preventative and early intervention options as far as climate change goes. Reducing climate adaptation spending in this time ignores overwhelming scientific evidence and recent weather events, which I don't think anyone needs to be reminded about, affecting our community and across Aotearoa and globally. Infrastructure underinvestment over decades cannot be solved through short-term squeaky wheel or anti-progress thinking. Poniki's cultural energy matters just as much as its balance sheet. A city that feels stale, tired, and unwelcoming will struggle to attract visitors, skilled workers, and investment. This is a make-or-break moment for Poniki. We must decide whether we want to reduce costs and increase revenues in ways that support the future or the past. Where is the right balance? Do we want to invest in becoming a modern, affordable, vibrant city for future generations? Or do we want more of the past, drifting further towards stagnation and decline? And I can tell in the 10 years that I've been here, I haven't seen so much progress as more of the same, and a very sort of move towards more of the same is going backwards, while other cities move ahead and are dynamic and future residents move to these. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Kia ora, thank you. Unfortunately we've run out of time for questions, but thanks for coming in, really appreciate it.

Ka pai.

Next we're going to move to Peter Rodda, who I believe is online. Welcome, Peter. Uh, Peter, are you, uh, there online? Hi, yes, welcome. Um, you've got 5 minutes. Thank you, thank you very much. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. Um, I don't have a lot of opinions, but just one opinion on the cycleways and one on Airbnb. Um, as far as the cycleways concerned, I have been a cycle commuter for 9 years in various countries around the world, and I've never had any incidents or issue. Um, and I prefer to ride on a road, not on a cycle lane. Um, I feel that the cycle lanes that I find in Wellington make it more dangerous, not less dangerous, for me as a cycle commuter. Um, there's much more road markings that confuse both drivers and cyclists. Cyclists are sometimes hidden behind rows of cars, which makes crossing those lanes quite dangerous as well. And the roads are really good in Wellington, they're fantastic. So I don't see the need for additional infrastructure to segregate cyclists from road traffic. I think the segregation creates more issues than it fixes. And I think if the issue is that road users are not sharing the road correctly with other road users, that that should be the thing that we try to correct rather than creating separate roads for separate categories of road users. We may need to make motorcycle lanes, we may need to make big car lanes, little car lanes, all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I quite strongly oppose cycle lanes overall and any investment in them and would much prefer to use the road to cycle on. And then on the Airbnb rates increase, It just to me seems like additional layers of making things more difficult for people rather than easier. And I would suggest that the council maybe rather look at ways to promote small people doing small businesses by reducing their rates if they are opening up their houses to travelers and tourists coming into the the city because those travelers are bringing with them their money, their expenditure, their VAT and tax, and there's— they are the people who are running the Airbnbs or providing a valuable service, and so it's not nice to hurt them additionally, but rather to support them. And I'd like to ask the council, what ways do they support individual businesses like people running their little Airbnbs or making additional room in their house available, how do they support these individuals to do these services for the city? Thank you, Peter. We have a question from Councillor Matthews. Kia ora, Peter.

I was just wondering, I mean, I've heard you about your preference for riding your bike on the road, but I guess what I've heard from people over the years on councillors, people who are less confident to do that already, and particularly women and children who do support separated cycle infrastructure. So I'm wondering if you thought about the perspective of those other cyclists.

Yeah, my perspective is— and I saw a news article last week or a little video about Evans Bay Cycleway, which then ends somewhere and Everyone who was interviewed said they had no idea what to do as soon as the cycleway ended, then they were confused and they didn't know what to do in traffic. And I think this is one of the issues that the cycleways create, is that you're putting people who are not confident cycling on a road in a situation where they would be cycling on a road. And so those people should rather have courses maybe even a license to cycle on the road so that they're taught how to do it correctly and they can have confidence doing that rather than creating a completely separate system for them. And again, if that is the case, then maybe would those individuals who feel like they are not confident on the road, would they fund it themselves or are they asking society to fund something specifically for them? I've just got a follow-up.

Would another option for those people who are less confident and when they hit the end of a separated cycle lane, another option would be to connect those cycle lanes that we have?

Well, I think, yeah, we could spend more money and we could make more infrastructure, but ultimately if there's a cycle lane and people are only willing to use cycle lanes And those people who are not competent or confident to commute on those cycle lanes or on roads, I think, are not road users. They are recreational users. And so maybe the budget for those things should come out of the same budget that creates parks and recreation because those are recreational users, not transport users. Thank you, Peter. Appreciate you tuning in to do your submission. Thank you. Thank you. Next we're going to move to Mark Brown. Welcome, Mark. Welcome to stand at the podium or take a seat at the head of the table there. I'm here, so I'll stay here. Cool. Get started. Thank you all very much for your time. I saw a very long list of people that you've got to listen to today, so I'll try and be succinct. I've been a Wellingtonian all my life. I'm here in a private capacity, but I work at a fund management company down the road, New Zealand one, and I run the fixed interest team. And so as part of that team, we invest on behalf of KiwiSaver and superannuation clients, well over $100 million invested in LGFA bonds and about another $100 mil or so, which is in other council bonds. And as part of that role, we think about the financial situation of the local authorities around the country and the arrangement that you guys have with LGFA, which has been hugely beneficial to Wellington Council, I think, in terms of the pricing and availability of debt financing that it's had. But one of the other things that we do as part of our work is to think about cash flows and household cash flows, and if I look at the pace of which we have had council rates increase over the last few years, one of the concerns I have is as that compounds through time, if we've got, say, a 2% inflation rate and an 8% growth rate in councils and so on, in today's dollar terms, in 10 years, that burden doubles for an average, a median household in New Zealand. I think median rates in Wellington are $5,177 last year. They would become 10,000 and then it would become 18,000 in real terms in 20 years. So it's an emergency sort of situation that I'm sure you guys appreciate. And another element of that mix is with the rate capping regime potentially coming through. This morning on national radio, Fitch Ratings, which is a credit rating agency, talked about potential downgrades for councils in that environment because you wouldn't have such ready access to increasing rates to fund yourselves. And if councils experience downgrades as you go further and further down, the LGFA would be charging you higher marginal tax rates as well. So whichever way, whichever path you go down, the financial situation is a challenge. So you know that pretty well. The area I guess I'm interested in raising is looking at things that you do that you don't need to be doing. And I think a really large one, and I know there's socially it would be a hugely contentious thing and that many councillors have campaigned specifically on it, but this is looking at the provision of community housing in Wellington. Under the legislation, as you'll be aware, not obliged to do it. In the 10-year plan, I think you guys are looking to be spending $439 million over the next 10 years out of your CAPEX budget, which is more than 10% of the total. There will be other costs obviously associated with maintaining that stock. Around the country, some councils do communities, some don't. And there are other providers. There's the government's NC obviously, but also there are some charities and churches, and they're not providing a huge amount, but around Wellington we've got Salvation Army, we've got Dwell in Kilbirnie who've got fantastic wee resource, but I think they've got 19 places. What I'd invite the Council to think about, and I know it's a long way away from a lot of people's prior thinking would be to think about reducing the stock of the community housing you've got, and what that would do is would reduce your debt, would reduce the servicing costs of that property, and if you could shift it to other— shift those assets to other providers, it can continue as a social resource inside Wellington. You know, we're all aware of the need, but I think that that would be quite an interesting thing for you guys to have a look at, and I think by shifting the ownership, you'd reduce the financial burden on the council council, which would enable you to free up to go into different areas. And I also think, just given the financial situation, it's probably an area that you're going to be challenged to do well going forward. So I'll leave it at that. Thanks, Mark. We have a question from Deputy Mayor McNulty. Kia ora, Mark. I was just wondering if you're aware of the deed that the City Council has with central government around social housing. So in 2007, essentially, they put in half the bill on the Healthy Home Upgrade Program, and then we've been liable for the other half, and we've deferred on doing that until now. So that contractually bounds us to a certain level of ownership of property as well as the level of upgrades and things like that. So I was just wondering if you had the awareness of that sitting over our decisions. No, I didn't. Maybe I'd invite you to renegotiate in the situation you're at. Central Government have tried to assist Wellington Council in certain areas, and I know it's an area that they won't want to just take on themselves because of their own fiscal situation, but I think from your point of view, you'd want to rediscuss that with the Government. Yep. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Unfortunately, we're out of time now, but really appreciate you coming in. Thanks very much, everyone. Thanks. I don't believe Bethany Miller is here, so we'll go next to Dr. Nick Lambrixton, who's online. Apologies if I've got that wrong. Welcome. You have 5 minutes. Well, I made my submission, and I trust that the members of the Council have looked at Diligent, page 469, which I understand is where the submission is, and I basically strongly oppose the savings from the proposed Otare Native Plant Trust. In the— and it also proposes the rehoming of the Otare Laboratory. Now, the cost of rehoming has not been considered or has not been shown, and the proposed savings, I believe, are insignificant compared to the long-term viability of this research establishment. And the research conducted at this lab has made a huge contribution to native plant conservation. And I, as a botanist, I do not want to lose it. I noticed that the Planning and Finance Committee at its meeting of 12 March 2026 had to consider a document comprising 136 pages, so that it would have been easy to overlook the importance of item 17, which is the one I'm referring to, and the impact the proposed reduction would have on the future of this laboratory. Therefore, I recommend that the lab's budget be not reduced by $211,000. That's about all I wish to say at this point, and if there are questions, then I'll try to address them. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Do we have an— oh, we do have a question from Councillor Chung. Thank you very much, Doctor. I much appreciated you making the effort to speak to us. Regarding the Otari lab, Do you think that the best place now for a lab is actually at Otari? Because it's quite small and the expansion areas are not available. So would that not be better off under the wing of someone like DOC or a university, do you think? Well, if it can be accommodated by either of those agencies that you suggest, yes. I understand that the Trust has made an offer of research, a special research scholarships, but again, I assume that would be at its present location in Wurthenbusch and not at a location at the university, but I haven't got the details on that issue. But yes, if it can be accommodated at some other location, that would be marvellous, but I think the costs of doing so should be very carefully considered because the laboratory is quite well set up and any move should be, as I say, carefully considered.

Great, thank you very much.

Much appreciated. Thanks, Nick. Do we have any further questions? Councillor Randall. Yes, I noticed that when it came to the cycleway proposals, you selected Option A, but you also commented on reduced rates. I was wondering if you could explain why you chose Option A compared to Option B, or what you really think about the cycleway program. I have to look where about— oh, this is— is this regarding reducing cycleways program? Yes. Okay. Well, I think it should be reduced wherever possible because I do think that the bike network is not economically viable. And the vast sums of money that have been spent on the cycle track network, I don't think is being used to justify the huge expense incurred. And while it may be an option for the future, I think with the present financial constraints, it would be much better to reduce. And I thought Option A was the suggested option to do so. So just to be clear, if there was an option just to stop the cycleways, would you have chosen that over Option A? Yes, I would be inclined to say that at this point in time. I think basically Wellington is, apart from the flat areas, is not a very convenient and congenial area for cycleways, and the constraint is imposes on other road users I think is quite daunting and quite, well, I wouldn't say alarming, but yeah, it's a major concern. Thank you. Thanks, Nick. We're just at the end of time now, but I really appreciate you doing a written submission and tuning in to speak to us today as well. Thank you. I'm very pleased the system actually works. Thank you. Thanks. We're going to head to Bethany Miller, who I think is here now. Thank you. You're welcome to stand at the podium or take a seat at the table there as well, just in front. I'll use the podium. Cool. You got 5 minutes, and if you want to leave some time for questions within that 5 minutes, that'd be good as well. Cool, thank you. No worries.

Kia ora, it's wonderful to be here today. I love that the new council is overlooking the water, and I'm so excited to be here just so after the opening of Te Aratupua. What an incredible route. I was busy rehearsing a climate change play on Saturday, so I couldn't check it out then, but I'm about to go on it after this. But what my family told me was that there were people of all ages there, literal babies, children, to very, very old walking it. And what I would like to express is that cycleways and putting, um, improving our pathways for cyclists makes our roads and streets better for everyone. It calms streets so that there are less injuries, literally less deaths, and it makes it safer and it makes it a wonderful way to get around. I biked here today and I also just came from teaching a bunch of kids to ride on the road safely. I get to witness every day the future users of our cycleways. I get to take them on these cycleways and teach them how to navigate them safely. I also get to teach adults how to use these cycleways. On guided rides and also going out with my own family and friends in my own time. And what I do have to say about it is that connected cycleways work, but disconnected cycleways create a lot of problems. These pathways are especially for people— I love using them, they make my riding around so much nicer— but they're especially for people who haven't started riding yet. That's the target, that's a special target, and those people do find it really scary on the roads and really scary having to weave on and off cycleways. Now that Te Aratupua is open, we don't want them to get all the way to Wellington and then have nowhere to go. That's why we need a connected north-to-south route that includes Featherston Street and the other ways to get to get that connected. These will benefit everyone. We are in a fuel crisis. We are also in a climate crisis. And when the world is so grim, it's also our well-being that suffers. Having ways to get around outside that are cheap, good for our health, and getting out and about helps all of those things. This is the most deeply unwise time to stop this. These cycleways networks And this whole network, Pāineki Pōneki, that has been internationally renowned, got awards, and also got awarded funding, it is so successful. It is so popular. Stopping it halfway is ludicrous. So I thank you so much for the incredible work you've done so far, and we're not finished yet. Don't mess it up. Success, keep going. On that note, I really quickly want to say that I think it's also a deeply disturbing time to be reducing our carbon mitigation and— sorry, carbon emission reducing budget. The fact that we have grants for community groups that are already putting in so much of their own value to help reduce our emissions, emissions while doing the most amazing social enterprises. Like, I love going to Everybody Eats, I love Kai Sako, I love Ekerua, and I live near there, and I've been helped so much by them myself. These groups add their own value. We're only putting from the council in a tiny bit. So please, this is the time to, to make those stronger, to boost those things. I also work with so many kids, and it pains me to think we would be making our road safety worse for them. That is utterly irresponsible. Please, we need to look after our tamariki. Finally, in my last 30 seconds, I, as well as being a cycle instructor, I am an artist. Artists bring so much value to our creative capital. We need to be able to— we need activations throughout the year. That includes Te Ngāko Civic Square. We need those grants. Do not take $700+K away from funding. Boost it instead. It helps our wellbeing and everything else in our capital. Thanks, Bethany.

Really appreciate you getting in time, so I'll give you one question. Councillor Chung. Great, thanks. I'll be very quick.

You mentioned that You think that we should have a cycle lane down Featherston Street.

Featherston Street is an extremely busy street, so would you think it's not better for cyclists to ride along the waterfront? It's being safer and not in any danger of being—

Yeah, I'm not a traffic engineer. I think it's a beautiful place to ride, but when you have shared paths, it actually makes it less safe for pedestrians. So I would say you want to have lots of different options. You want to have those options, but people on bikes need to get into town as well. So have those options available as well. Especially because for people riding bikes, some might only feel safe enough on the waterfront, but others are getting confident enough to be able to try the road if there's a cycleway. But thanks for your question. Great, thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks, Bethany, appreciate you coming in.

Thanks everyone.

Next we're going to go to Ben Jones and Joel Cosgrove representing iGum Music Collective. Welcome. Just press the button. Yep. The one that says push. There we go. Glorious. It's really obvious when you're told. We're here representing the iGUN Music Collective, a Pōneke-based organisation focused on hosting events that celebrate our amazing live music scene. We're big flag wavers for our city. We love it. We're also fathers, so we're unlikely to leave any time soon. My name is Joel, founding member of our collective, and this is Ben, our current chairperson. We've been around for more than 12 years now, and we put on a whole bunch of different events of sizes and scope. We put on regular free shows at San Fran, which host over 300 people. It's often the starting point for acts coming through. As some of their first gigs. We've hosted over 400 shows here over the past decade, and we aim to showcase local up-and-coming artists to larger audiences. We also have Great Sounds Great, which we book all of the Cuba Street precinct. If you want to organise a gig that night, you can't, 'cause we've booked everywhere, ranging from Wahalla to Miao Nui and everything in between. So this year we should have over 2,000 people milling around. Enjoying the best that Wellington has to offer. We're a volunteer-run collective. We've been very fortunate to receive council funding to support this work over the past few years. It's been essential for us to deliver this important mahi in an increasingly challenging organisation. We believe that independent arts organisations deliver and can deliver excellent value for money, given the outsized benefit the creative sector contributes to Wellington's economy. Also, our consistent and unique cultural calendar is why many people choose to live in our capital. It's one of our points of difference and one of our strengths. Nowhere else in the country can you have Newtown Fest and QBDUPA, where technically two-thirds of the population come out in the same month. You look at something like LUMAS Festival, no one does these things like we do, and that's one of our strengths. All the projects supported through Council Arts funding help build and maintain the local infrastructure needed for these events to exist. A lot of these people involved are contractors, so it's not— these people have multiple jobs that form an interconnected web that give them a lifestyle, that give them a living. So it's not just about individual events, it's about the network of these events creating a framework for our arts sector to exist. I'll pass you over to Ben. Last week we received a timely reminder of the difficulties facing event organisers. Tāmaki Makaurau's Othersway Festival, which is one of the most, and has been one of the most beloved events for the past decade amongst artists and music fans around the country, is no longer able to continue due to tough conditions. A multi-venue festival taking over K Road in central Auckland, our Great Sounds Great Festival would not exist without it. Rising costs, changing attendance behaviour, access to sponsorship, and changes to central government funding such as Creative New Zealand grants have been cited by the promoter as reasons for its closure and are challenges we and all other similar organisations in Wellington are facing. We urge Council against reducing funding for independent arts organisations, given the importance of their work and the efficiency with which they can produce the events off the smell of an oily rag. Taking Eyegum as an example, with a relatively small amount of funding, we can deliver two major projects which produce significant positive outcomes and are unique within Aotearoa. Our weekly showcases, as Joel mentioned, attract audiences of over 300 people on a Wednesday night, and are the envy of all other music scenes around the country. Great Sounds Great Festival is now the largest of its kind in New Zealand, and we believe it will have the best lineup of all local artists in the country this year. That includes homegrown. I would like to finish by reiterating that we are extremely grateful for all the support we have received from Council in the past few years and hope to receive in the future, and we especially thank the work of staff we've interacted with. In particular, the introduction of annual stability funds last year provides much-needed certainty for us and other organisations, and we're also excited about the next phase of the Ahu Tēni strategy and working closely with Council and other arts organisations in the future. Thank you. Thank you. We've got a question from Councillor Tippenbaker. Firstly, thanks very much for what you guys do. Secondly, can you give us just a picture of if the Council tried to do what you guys do, how much more it will cost us? Because I think, you know, the reality is on funding, we're enabling you a little bit to do stuff, but obviously you raise a lot of funds elsewhere, which we would have to supply if we weren't actually empowering you, or you couldn't do it because we reduce our funding. So could you give us some picture of that, maybe what percentage, maybe? Yeah, I mean, it's hard for us to say, to give a firm number or percentage, but I think definitely more. I think it definitely would cost more. We have existing infrastructure, networks, connections. This is really what we do, what we specialise in, and as we mentioned, What we really want to get across is that not just us, but other groups like us in Wellington, we only need a lot to get a lot out of it. Sorry, we only need a little bit to get a lot out of it in terms of these sorts of projects. I'll just squeeze one in from Deputy Mayor McNulty as well. Sort of along the same lines, there's a proposed cut in terms of us setting up activations in Tanaka, so that's a brand new thing we're doing. So it's really the view that we're probably better off finding the people that are already doing things in the creative sector and actually that funding going and breeding into people doing the doing, so to speak, rather than trying to build things from scratch. Yeah, well, there's a lot of organizations that can do that. So it's less about who does it and that we do it in the most effective and efficient way. So however you do it, do it. But I think that these are really important anchor points that really help, especially at this time of the year. Events are a bit like a smiley face. July and August are some of the thinner times. A lot of people work the most during summer, and so this time is when people try to live on their savings and eke out whatever work's coming through, because for obvious reasons it's much harder to put on an event in July than it is in February. Yeah, but I think generally we would support principle, that proposal, we think, you know, with a constrained budget, I think generally speaking, that funding is better directed towards those independent organisations that have, you know, the space, the scope, the time, and the networks to really make those special events happen. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're out of time now, but thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Next, we're going to go to David Pannett representing Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. Thank you. E nā rangatira mātou e nā koutou katoa. I'm David Pannett, Senior Manager for Strategy and Engagement at Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, and I'm here representing Creative New Zealand and our governing board, the Arts Council. Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you today. It's great to see many of you again, and to to meet the new councillors as well. Creative New Zealand is the national arts development agency of Aotearoa. We're here to encourage, promote, and support the arts in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders. We really value our work with Wellington City Council to support a vibrant, connected, and economically strong city. In March, with the Arts Foundation, we hosted the Wellington edition of All In for Arts, He Wakatoa E Eke Noa Nei Tātou, at Parliament. Hopefully the Mayor doesn't mind me quoting him. As the Mayor shared at the event, Wellington is a city that prides itself on its extensive and deep creative sector. It's very important for me as Mayor to make sure that our organisation, the City Council, and our councillors are getting right in behind that continuing support and evolution of the sector. And we totally agree. So we've got 3 key messages for you today. Firstly, Council is a crucial investor and partner in the arts. Your investment unlocks more investment. Council funding enables artists, practitioners, and arts organisations to leverage funding from other sources, including us. Consistent funding from Council is vital in supporting the arts ecosystem in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. We're all aware that the ecosystem is fragile. You've probably heard me say this before, but our research tells us that the average income for creative professionals remains stubbornly low, at $37,000 per annum, with only $19,500 of that coming from creative pursuits alone. So we urge Council to maintain its investment in the city's arts communities. We urge you to maintain the Creative Capital budget to support artists, arts communities, and organisations across the wider creative ecosystem to continue to make their vital and valued contributions to the city. We urge you to retain funding for the Tanaka Civic Square Activation to support cultural programmes that enhance the city centre and activate public spaces. Arts and cultural programmes in Tanako will boost vibrancy and support local businesses, hospitality, and tourism. Those programmes also support and build skills, knowledge, and career pathways for artists and creatives. Our next key message is Wellingtonians strongly support the arts. From our most recent research, New Zealanders and the Arts, we know that people's personal connection with the arts continues to grow. The arts matter to Wellingtonians. Our research tells us that around 70% recognise the benefits of the arts to the economy and to wider New Zealand society. 69% agree that the arts and culture have a vital role to play in the future of Wellington, and 67% agree that the arts make an important contribution to community resilience and wellbeing. Finally, working together is key. Arts organisations, iwi and hapū, community funders, and others are natural partners in building a thriving, diverse Wellington. The creative sector helps Council deliver on its vision for Pōneke, the creative capital where people and nature thrive. Secure and stable investment in cultural infrastructure, services, and activities by Council through the Annual Plan and into the Long Term Plan is crucial for a healthy Wellington arts ecosystem. Arts, culture, creativity, and ngā toi Māori bring life, colour, and joy to the city. Council support creates a vibrant Wellington, enhances social wellbeing and community connection, and showcases pōneke creatives on the national stage. Your investment creates essential infrastructure for strong, prosperous, connected, and healthy communities. Continuing this investment enables arts communities to help you achieve your vision and ambitions for Wellington. Mōre rā tēnā koutou katoa, mauri ora ki a koutou katoa. Thank you, David. We've got a question from Councillor Chung. Thanks very much for coming in, David. I have a question: do you think we're better off to direct our grant funding towards organisations like yours, where you've got an existing structure, or these these much smaller organisations or smaller groups who come up and say that this is what I want to do, this is the art show that I want to have. Which do you think is more efficient or better use of our money? I think it's really important to be able to have good strong local decision-making, and we achieve that at the moment working with you on the Creative Communities Scheme. It involves us saying here's a pot of money and like your local Grants Committee to distribute that effectively on our behalf, but for the benefit of Wellingtonians. So I think there's— in some cases money for organisations that are nationally focused or have a strong presence comes through us, but increasingly it'll likely be being decided and delivered by closer to home in Wellington. So we're in the process of starting a process of what we're calling Empowered Communities, or tukuraumi, which will increasingly see us partnering with regional organisations to deliver funding for events and arts that happen in Wellington through Wellington. So there's an RFP process that's live on that at the moment, and we're considering who's putting their hand up to be able to do that. Increasingly, our funding will be less decided at the office in Wellington or Auckland and more locally within the communities, which makes it more connected, more relevant to the ambitions of those communities. So I think horses for courses, but increasingly it'll be more done locally. Yeah. Great, thanks. Thanks, David. We're out of time now, but really appreciate you coming in and doing this session. Thank you. Thanks. Next, we're going to go to Alan Black. I know you just arrived, but if you are ready to go, you're welcome to—

Thanks. Second up. Kia ora tātou. I'm Ellen Blake. This is my personal submission on the annual plan. I'll be very quick. I've got, just in brief, I support increasing the rates on B&Bs. And I don't support increasing the fees for swimming for children. I think it's really important that children can get to be swimmers. And I know you're always asking how to make more money, so my ideas are that you do in fact charge motorbike parking in the central city. I don't know why that got chucked out. And I think that we should be charging car parking, residential car parking everywhere. I think the whole purpose of public space should be that there's a value to it, and we should recognise that. So, my 3 main points are that I was really pleased to see in the triennium plan that City Council's going to do a transport strategy and a walking policy. So, we definitely need better data on collection on that now that we don't do cordon counts, and the census has gone, so I think we should absolutely have a strategy transport strategy in place before we do single-mode funding for any other types of travel, including cycling. I think it's really important that after, I think it's about 15 years of doing a cycle plan, that we need to have a little reset. And I think that as most people, and particularly in central Wellington, walk or bus, I think those things need to be better planned for, and we need an integrated system before we do any more single-mode funding. I know it was— I don't think it's on the annual plan, but the compost system, I totally support doing something with our compost, but I think we've leapt immediately to the most expensive option, and I think that I would really like to see supporting some of the community composting initiatives by having maybe a funded position or two that can help actually manage the compost at those places. That's— I know it relies on volunteers at the moment, And I would like to see that include apartment dwellers as well, because they have been left out of the scheme. And one of my faves is I think we really need to up the ante on pest plant management in our parks and public places. That's really languishing. We're being overwhelmed with new pest plants. I hear moth plant is floating around in the northern area up here. It's a really significant new weed, and we still haven't got on top of old man's beard and a whole lot of other things. So we really need to focus on pest plants as much as we do on pest animals, and any new parks should be contingent on getting on top of some of those things. Oh, and there was another one: I don't think we should have any more e-scooters in the central city or anywhere, any higher e-scooters until we have the streets transport strategy in place that can properly assess how it all works together. I think they've been a total menace on the footpath. I was just about taken out on your corner. You can't see it from here, but by somebody zipping around on the e-scooter just right now. And I can't leap around as much as I used to. So anyway, that's me. Thank you very much. Thanks, Helen.

We have a question from Councillor Young.

Thanks, Alan. Just want to talk to you about short-term, whatever it's called, accommodation. You said you support the increase to— it's actually a decrease at the moment. The council policy is 3.7, the full commercial rate, and so it's actually, just to make sure you understand, it's actually a decrease. Oh, I thought it was gone from nothing to something, or had gone to residential rates. I might have repeated that, yeah. So I just thought I would just, you know— Well, yeah, I just think that commercial activity should be all treated fairly, so, you know, yep. Any further questions?

We've got a minute left. Deputy Mayor McNulty. I just know your passion for correct scooter usage, so I'm interested just on your observation since Lime have entered the market.

Yeah, there are, you know, people who live in the central city are the ones most affected by hire-e-scooters. You don't see them to the same extent that you do in outer suburbs. On my street, there's at least 20 that park up overnight. They're a menace. I've had people in my community who are blind. They have to navigate these all the time. Lime has— I think Flamingo's better, they're better at managing it. Lime are just all over the place and they've got their hire e-bikes. They should all be on the road. Simple. Footpaths are for pedestrians. We all walk. There's at least 10 to 20% of our population who do not drive. They rely on walking. They rely on public transport. So let's just get our transport strategy in place and recognise some of this stuff.

Thanks, Helen. Appreciate you coming in.

Okay, thank you. Thanks very much.

We're going to go now to Carolyn Adams. Welcome, Carolyn.

Kia ora, good afternoon. I'm speaking against the proposal to charge a commercial rate of 2.6 times the residential rate to those ratepayers providing short-term accommodation in Wellington City. If there was a shortage of long-term rental property available, I could see the sense of charging those properties a commercial rate to make them equivalent to hotels, and in order to force some of those properties onto the long-term rental market. However, this is not currently the case, as there is, there is an oversupply of rental accommodation in Wellington City, um, and in my opinion, it's unlikely to change in the medium term. Also, doing this, you create a glaring inequality with long-term rentals. They too are commercial activity, and it seems to me that if you do it for short-term activity, you need to do it for long-term as well. However, we are not short at the moment, and— oh, sorry. I note that the proposal excludes those using only part of their dwelling in sleepouts. These are sensible exclusions. However, I want to suggest to you that there is another situation that should also be excluded. That is where a primary residence, or only residence in my case, is let out for short-term accommodation for part of the year and is lived in by the owner for the rest of the year. Well, well, this is my situation and a solution I came to when a rapid rise in everything, but especially rates and insurance, blew my carefully constructed retirement financial planning out the window. While wanting to do what I could for myself, there's not many options for increasing income available to older people. Short-term accommodation proved to be a viable option. If I could remove myself and have paying guests, I could afford to stay in the city. Last year I did this for 100 nights and this year 129 nights. That income provides a valuable extra at current market prices for me to pay current costs. Multiplying my rates by 2.6 over 60 days plus full month-long bookings would not be sufficient and I would have to consider moving out of the city we all love. Whilst some of you are on record of seeing this as unfortunate but a valuable way to bring down rates, I am sure there are many of you who would not regard this as a fair thing to do. I also note that the proposal is to count the allowable days as the number advertised and not the number actually rented. I would ask that you amend this to days actually rented. Please also note that my clientele are unlikely to rent hotel rooms or even hotel apartments due to cost and blandness. They will possibly give Wellington a swerve. I am thinking of the doctor who had my place for 2 months while on locum in Wellington, the elderly couple who did not want to be in a hotel for 6 weeks, the tech worker who wanted peace and quiet. The family who wanted to bake during their family reunion, and many book lovers, and many others who prefer the character and additional amenities provided in the home that are not provided in any other type of short-term accommodation. Many of these would not come to Wellington, but those that do spend in the city. They go out to dinner, they go to shows, they buy food, coffee, fuel. Day trips, they pay me so I can pay a student cleaner, etc. All of this makes my short-term rental a valuable addition to the local economy. A further consideration is how this would be administered. It seems to me that it would be an absolute headache counting the number of days under 60 plus the number of 30-day blocks. My understanding is that providers would be classed either as residential or short-term accommodation. You're going to do that in advance, retrospectively, what— and I imagine the cost of actually bringing all that together would be very costly. The thought of being wrongly classified is keeping me up at night. These issues should certainly be a major consideration in your deliberations. In conclusion, I ask you to exclude primary or only residences that are rented out for short-term accommodation for part of the year and are lived in by the owner and ratepayer for the rest of the time.

Thank you. Thanks. We'll just go to a really quick question from Deputy Mayor McNulty. Kia ora, Carolyn. Thank you for those quite pragmatic suggestions. You've only got a single rates invoice in your situation, haven't you? So for us, our options would be to either rate your entire property on 2.7 permanently or try and apportion an element under what we've proposed at the moment if we're doing the stay structure. That would be correct understanding, wouldn't it?

I don't know what consideration you've given to the administration. I'm just trying to think it through myself and not finding that there's an easy way to do it.

I mean, yeah. Yep. No, but I think you've highlighted some— Sorry. You've highlighted some good things for us to take away, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate you coming in. Now we're going to head to Elliot Chapman, who I believe is online. Hi. Welcome, Elliot. 5 minutes. Thank you. Thanks. Alrighty. Mayor and councillors, Wellington is navigating a fiscal landscape where past, present, and future shocks will arrive within this annual plan period. The Strait of Hormuz is not a distant geopolitical story. It is a domino effect that will run through Wellington's economy in a 9 to 18 month lag. Volatile oil prices flow into fuel costs, cost of living, commercial rates, bases, and the council's fiscal capacity. What is already on the table is sobering enough on its own. A 212% debt to revenue ratio breaches this council's 200% debt ceiling. More points still unfunded. April flood damage estimated in the hundreds of millions. Demand for rates assistance up 150% in 2 years. CBD vacancies at 9.3%. 62% of residents say Wellington is deteriorating. These are not isolated issues. They intersect across an ecosystem of people, profit, planet, and place. This pattern is not unique to Wellington. The UK local government sector is now openly naming the same dynamic. A policy landscape designed for a stable world operating in a destabilising one. Wellington's case is sharper because we have spent 6 years optimising potentially the wrong variable. The foundations of our net zero policy are structurally misaligned for today's context— not the intent, the design. The current policy is structured to control one variable: Wellington's territorial emissions through direct local intervention. In a simple, stable system, that approach may be more effective. In a complex system under polycrisis conditions, it takes— it does the opposite of what it intends. Laid onto everything else, the net zero mechanism drives the cost of living up. Squeezed households substitute towards the cheapest goods available. The cheapest goods on the market today ship direct from China on coal-powered supply chains. China and Temu alone emit 25 megatons to Wellington's 1 megaton. In 2024, China commissioned a coal-fired power station emitting in 3 months what Wellington's bike network is designed to save in a decade. Meanwhile, the local carbon abatement we are paying for is the most expensive on the curve. Cycleways, $800 to $2,400 per tonne. The emissions trading scheme, $50 to $65 per tonne. This council is paying up to 50 times the market rate for carbon. While pushing its residents' consumption habits away from local business powered by 80% renewable energy toward a coal-fueled supply chain emitting 50 times more across its distribution networks. Simultaneously, we are eroding local climate resilience, local livelihoods, jobs, and sustainable wage increases. This is not a question of climate action. It is a question of climate accounting and recognizing the wide boundary impact of carbon tunnel vision. We have unwittingly inherited a policy that improves the scorecard while making the actual problem worse. The unintended consequences of unsustainable policy is a war on all Wellingtonians, from graduates to working class to seniors, and their adaptive capacity to survive future shocks, including the meta disruptions emerging from exponential tech. So I have 3 asks. One, what if we treated the cycleway question as an adaptive part of a holistic civic portfolio? Yes, considerable funding has already gone into the existing network. In every low-performing segment costs ratepayers twice more, once in maintenance and once in lost revenue. Pause the 26-27 expansion, publish utilisation data. Where existing segments are not performing, convert them back to productive revenue to buffer our fiscal slippage. 2. Correct the creative capital disparity. A 5% cut versus Social and Recreation's 0.4% cut is an outsized burden that does not follow proportional discipline. The creative sector already runs on a $37,000 median income, well below the living wage, with returns $3.20 per dollar invested. Protect the grants. 3. Reprioritise the upstream net zero policy. The numbers show that attempts to accelerate the pace of change are having a counterintuitive impact on social, economic, and planetary capital. Recalibrate our systemic direction from eco-austerity to regenerative economic resilience and localism, civic abundance, in order to protect human flourishing amidst these liminal times. Climate spending follows where it actually works. In times of volatility, we need to adapt capacity, not the sunk cost fallacy of low leverage abatement. Update our carbon accounting to a holistic model that accounts for second-order impacts, across people, profit, planet, and place. In conclusion, this is not a debate about whether climate matters. Decisions based on the first to zero policy are forcing us to do the wrong thing the right way in the face of volatile emergent conditions. The evidence strongly suggests the context has shifted since its inception. It has made the city poorer and incentivising higher emitting consumption habits. That is not climate leadership, that is policy failure. Now is the time to make course corrections. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Elliot. Do we have any questions? Doesn't appear— oh, no, doesn't appear we have any questions. So thank you so much for tuning in and doing your submission. Appreciate it. No worries. Cheers. Thanks, everyone. So we're going to take around about a 20-minute break and return at 3 PM.

Sorry? Oh, hello. Yes, there is. Yeah, ignoring the mayor, that's not right. Okay, look, I'll welcome Alex Dyer. You can go to the podium or sit at the table.

Kia ora koutou, ko Alex Daya aho. I live in Island Bay. Many of you will be familiar, and hello to all the new faces. Here we are again. So I'll try and quickly rattle through my submission. Submitting here today as an individual. I'm here doing this for my family, for the health of my family, for the resilience and the future prosperity of my children. I'm not a cyclist. I ride a bike everywhere for most of my journeys, but I do this for getting around. I'm not doing it for a recreational interest. Just want to make that really clear. So I really support Option B for biking in your annual plan, and I'm really, really disturbed and anxious about the trajectory of the annual plan when it comes to climate mitigation and the cycling efforts at the moment. I really want a council that goes further and faster than what's even agreed to in the long-term plan. I think things have changed. I think things have changed. The annual plan wording, as I understand, was settled on before we've had basically the worst fuel crisis, energy crisis break out in world history. We've, we've also seen stark reminders of the climate disaster, the climate emergency that we are still all in. During this time since the wording of the annual plan was settled on. It makes no sense to give up on improving cycling conditions for people in Wellington at this time. Cities are for people, and I want my rates to be invested in the building of a city that's fit for people to live healthy and active lifestyles. Many can't or don't want to drive private cars, and the growing number of people— growing the number of people that we can see on bikes depends on making the infrastructure safe and accommodating and comfortable. Too many private cars in our city is what is deterring many who might otherwise take up biking. A strategy that you've been following for several years, and I really strongly support is investing in making the infrastructure obvious and intuitive for people to get on their bikes of all ages and abilities and to take up cycling as an everyday form of transport. The network needs to be connected, and I really call on the council to appreciate the urgency of delivering a network in this fuel crisis. Cost of living can be addressed by effectively helping a lot of people to reduce their car dependency, even as you're looking to reduce their costs through rates rise, you know, slowing rates rises. So I'd implore you to look into what you're trading off there, because I think Wellingtonians generally spend more on private car travel than they do on rates. According, you know, based on your annual budget anyway. And they'll be spending a lot more soon as fuel prices are going up. And I think we've only just seen the initial shock of prices. I don't think we've seen anywhere near the end of that yet. Bikes and delivering for people on bikes is the cheapest form of efficient personal transport. But it takes our collective investment in making the conditions good enough for a lot of people to make that choice for themselves. You really need to complete the central city connections. The Te Aratupua has opened, we're going to see a lot of people getting into the city by that. We've got a lot of great infrastructure coming online from the east. And the central city is going to be a big gap in the network. There's also a lot of primary network that is missing from Te Motu Kairangi. We've got gap campaigns to do better by the waterfront with our Keys Please campaign, Old Hut Road campaign, Middleton Road. All these things are going to be missing out, so it makes no sense to give up on these these efforts right now. Don't lose momentum and keep funding them and even go faster, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. There's no time for questions, but you— I know you're speaking a bit later on, so you may want to— No, I won't be.

Someone else is speaking. Okay.

All right. Thank you for coming along. Thank you. Thank you. We next have Miguel Telangon. Welcome, Miguel. All good to go. At least some time for questions if you'd like within your 5 minutes.

I'd like to acknowledge His Worship who has just been here Recently, and the Honourable Councillors, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen in attendance, good afternoon. I'm Miguel, a citizen of a country called New Zealand and indeed a Wellingtonian for the time being at least, and to borrow some words from the former Prime Minister Rob Muldoon, an ordinary bloke. I'd like to commence this oral presentation by discharging my utmost gratitude for the allocation of time and indeed lending your ears, as I hope would be beneficial to the Annual Plan 2026-27, or as in the words of Lil River Band, hang on, help's on its way and you're looking at it. Nonetheless, I do hope and pray that this presentation of mine be enlightening, albeit the brevity of time. Given the failure of Moa Point Sewage Plant that may have caused the impact, whether on local businesses or recreation or dare I say On Warup, perhaps it is a clear indication that the council should put the money where the mouth is in the means of reallocation of funding to the essential and basic infrastructure. As Wellington bears the august status of being the capital city since my nostalgic days of 1865, the aforementioned failure does indeed put Wellington's reputation at peril. And if I may add, the cycleway construction must be assessed on a, um, depending on the road's overall width. As I do fear that it may, that it already cause congestion, of which has been happening in Newtown Centre and Berampore, as yours truly being a commuter on a daily basis has to endure the pace of movement. Also, given the recent pluvial flooding last month, perhaps it is the signal that Council should focus on resilience and adaptation. and also preparations in any unforeseeable circumstances, for instance, the pluvial weather nearly a month ago, so to speak. Therefore, in conclusion, the Council must focus on essential infrastructure in order to minimize impact on such incidents cited, and also in order to avoid looming pressures on any demands, especially to the inevitable ratification of a trade agreement where Mato Shane referred it into something colorful description, and I for one could quote it upon request. And above all, to uphold the virtue of frugality and focusing on essential services and delivery. And I don't mean no offense, but as for the language being utilized on signage, lest we forget the inevitable passage of the English language bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Miguel. Is there any questions? No? You've been very clear. Thank you for making your submission.

Thank you very much.

All right. We now next have Richard Benge. Welcome, Richard. And you have 5 minutes, and if you want to allow some time for questions, leave some time within the 5 minutes. Thank you.

Kia ora koutou, ko Richard Benge taku ingoa, Kai Whakahare Matua, Arts Access Aotearoa. I'm the Executive Director of Arts Access Aotearoa based here in Wellington. Our submission which has been made covers many references and research for you to take into account. But today I want to address the impact of the proposed cuts to the Creative Capital budget, particularly wanting to look at the value of arts and culture as social investment for our city. But I'll begin with an introduction to myself. I'm a Wellingtonian, and I would like to just run over some points about my career and how my career has been a big part of the arts and culture in Wellington. I'm particularly grateful for all the people that have backed me and have supported me in that career over many years. In an international public diplomacy role, I helped to orchestrate the re-flying event by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she referred to Wellington as the coolest little capital. Remember that? It was my job in that event to contract the making of the most massive symbolic and creative wreath of flowers to Flowers Manuela so the Secretary could lay that at Pukeahu. In the early '90s, I was the director of many Wellington Christmas parades which were umbrellaed by the Wellington City Council and the Wellington Retailers Association. I've devised several major creative community arts advocacy events, one of which Mayor Frank Wilde carried a flaming torch from the Civic Square across the bridge behind me to the Lambton Harbour Lagoon in a multicultural event to promote human rights and healthcare during the devastating AIDS pandemic. In the early 2000s, I managed Old St Paul's, the cultural events and conservation efforts for Heritage New Zealand and our city. That iconic building would have been lost to the city and nation had it not been for the courage of Wellingtonians and others who had the vision to save it. And for the last 15 years, I've been the Director of Arts Access Aotearoa and I've advocated that accessibility to the arts is the right of all people in New Zealand. Our national organisation grew out of the vision and founders who were Wellingtonians. It's always had the backing of Wellington City Council, and for 20 years we've been housed in the Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, which is your engine our city's engine for collaboration and influence in the arts that drives events and careers. At Arts Access Aotearoa, we've helped the Council write your lead arts policy, Ahotini, and made sure that accessibility was throughout it so that for seniors, youth, deaf and disabled people, you would all be able— we would all be able to participate in and help drive the arts and cultural events in festivals, in street events, museums, galleries, venues, assisting the producers and the funders with the outcomes they want for the people, and to promote the value of community arts spaces, Vincent's and Pablo's, so the most marginalised citizens of our city could be involved in their arts and cultural. So that they would be truly accessible and equitable. Wellington City Council is known for its vision as the creative capital of New Zealand, and I personally love how the Mayor is consistently looking into the camera ahead of weekends to tell the people what's on, what to look out for, what to support, how to get out and participate in the city, and I know you as councillors do the same thing. Often it's into the arts events, the festivals, the gigs, and the concerts. These events happen because of the long lead-up over decades in professional development of the arts workers, the technicians, the performers, the managers. And there are other cities in New Zealand that would like to take the moniker of the arts capital from us if we give it to them. So, Councillors, my main purpose in front of you today is that I'm not asking you to prioritise the arts and culture over water pipes and the highly complex issues of water management and any of the other very important infrastructural and rates management tasks you have in front of you.

I am, however— Sorry, we just have to get you to wind up. You're just over your 5 minutes.

Oh, I've got one paragraph to go. Excellent. Here I go. I am, however— I represent a national organisation, so I could have 10 minutes apparently according to— No, no, no.

We had so many, everyone was given 5 minutes.

Okay, goodo, righto. Well, here I go winding up. I am asking you to look at structural equity. If your savings target is $6 million, taking $760,000 of that solely out of the Creative Capital and Civic Square budgets means the arts sector is absorbing over 12% of the city's financial pain. I believe in a fair go.

Thank you. We've come to the—

Thank you for the time today. Kia ora.

Thank you, Richard. We next have Karl Howarth is online. Welcome, Karl.

Thank you everyone, kia ora. So yeah, my name is Karl Howarth. The main thing I want to talk to in my submission is Key Proposal 2, which is the changes to the cycleway. So a bit about me, so a family of 4, we ride bikes as our main form of transport. We do own a car, but we also ride, we're one of these people that zip around the city on a cargo bike with our 2 children. Aged 6 and 4, so we use this bike to do the daycare drop-off, school drop-off, zip around the shops, go to sports, gymnastics, all that sort of stuff that parents do. So that's our main form of travel around Wellington. And we do own a car, but that only gets used relatively rarely for long-distance trips away and things. So I just want to congratulate the Council so far on what they've done with cycling. I mean, it's been transformative. Formation of my family in terms of being able to get around. Cycling is easily the most cost-effective and efficient way of getting around the city, and it's— I'd say it's one of the most cost-effective ways that Council can reduce congestion. So that's the main reason why I'm opposed to the proposal to cut the cycleway budget next year. I mean, delaying delivery of protected cycleway infrastructure, it's just simply prolonging exposure of cyclists like myself to unsafe road conditions. And that is working against all your long-term strategic priorities to reduce traffic congestion as well as putting people at risk. It just seems completely unjustified for the amount of money that you're looking at spending. So the gist is that with an incomplete network, it's like building a rail system but missing bits of the track. You're not getting the benefit from the money that you've invested So the value of a cycleway network depends on network completeness. People need to be able to get around, and I was just reflecting, I rode the Te Ara Tupua, the new cycleway, on Saturday. It was absolutely full of people, and these are— you've unlocked a connection to an entire city, Lower Hutt. They're going to want to be able to come into Wellington and be able to cycle around, and they're going to get there and find that we have a network, but it's not complete, and they're not going to be able to get around. So we're not going to get the benefit that we've got from that investment that we've already done. So the main problems with the network are the gaps, so the cross-town connections. So I'm thinking about things like Victoria Street, the waterfront, and I ride to work along Willis Street, for instance, and I have to ride along State Highway 2— it's not State Highway 2, it's State Highway 1. They're incomplete connections and it becomes dangerous and that's a barrier to people taking up cycling. So what I'm advocating for is commit. Don't stall, maintain the momentum. This was recently consulted on, people provided feedback, and so it's difficult to understand what the budget cut is actually going to do, but it's a significant cut, and I'm worried that it's going to create uncertainty and put people off investing in the changes that need to happen to make the most from the cycleway program. Yeah, so that's the gist of it. Have you got any questions?

Thanks, Karl. Are there any questions? Councillor Tiffenbarger.

Yeah, hi. So you said that you already cycle more than you do drive and so forth, so obviously we don't have the connected cycleway unit yet, and you mentioned Waller Street and Tory Street where there are no plans for cycleway at this moment. So there's always going to be some streets which are not going to have cycleways, obviously. So by connecting, we're not necessarily solving your problem, are we? No, you are, because I'm currently riding on unsafe roads. It's putting me at risk. So that's a risk risk that I'm willing to take, but I don't think it's a fair risk, and there are really plenty of people who would cycle if it were not for that risk. So you're not getting the benefit that you would if you had safe connections like it. Thank you.

Thank you, Carl, for making this submission. Thank you. We next have Bernard O'Shaughnessy. Welcome, Bernard. Nice to see you again.

Good afternoon, Councillors. Good afternoon, Chair and Mr. Michael. Thank you. The Secretary is just circulating a copy of my speech, so read that at your leisure and I'll I'll just be very brief. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. I haven't got time for a full greeting, but I assimilate with Ngāti Tūwhareta, Ngāti Waikato, and Ngāti Tūhoe. My submission is— you're getting it— basically, well, I'll just make it quick. We have a small rating base, and that's very difficult for Wellington City ratespayers because it's very small. We carry a huge burden because we're the capital city of New Zealand, and that imposes extra burdens on us. My suggestion, my paper is to say it's about time maybe we send them a bill or an invoice for that, for, for that status of capital, because it hurts us, hurts us a lot as Wellingtonians, and it hurts the ratepayers. So I've got a suggestion there to say we can't have a bill or but let's call it something else. And there's some suggestions in there like, just the industry and insurance. They have a thing called premium rate which enables them to hike up their rates on the consumer, and yet they have such huge high prices. Where I've also come from, I did some research and I found that what set me going was that shocking things of 2020 when we had the riots down there. And that cost the taxpayer a lot of money, but also the ratepayers a huge lot of money and a huge amount of damage to our mana as a capital city. And I did some research and found that in the English 2011 riots in London, there's actually— it's in here— 80 or 86 law, but then updated with recently to look at that situation that for the riots that cost London £300 million, there was a method whereby the local London ratepayers got assistance from the taxpayers of London. And that's what I'm putting forward here, is I'm inviting somebody— and this is not a new idea, I remember coming to a council meeting 20 years ago and we talked about a similar thing. Is it the Beehive? And being the capital city costs us, the city ratepayers, quite a bit of money. And I'm saying, here's a suggestion. I think we've got to talk about it because we're under such pressure with our expenditure. And our expenditure is caused by a lot of things we do in the city because we're wonderful Wellingtonians and we're generous and because we foster that kōrero, 'Capital in the World' mantra in arts and everything, and so we should. That's what capital cities are supposed to do. But I'm saying, come on, Parliament, come on, taxpayers. You know, the Kaikoura earthquake cost $4 billion, but that was property damage. Our damage here was $4 billion, and it's still ongoing, and we didn't get any handouts. My heart goes to Christchurch like everyone does, because that That earthquake smacked them down, but then we the taxpayers helped the ratepayers of Christchurch put in $40 billion to restore that city. And so I'm making those sorts of ideas. I'll stop there if there's any questions, but I invite you to read my paper. There's one more thing I want to leave. I'm really happy for questions, but I don't know if I want to hear from you, Ray.

So would you like to make another comment because you said you wanted to finish up.

Yes, but it's a different topic. But if there's any other questions from anyone else, I'll just briefly say somebody I might have had—

we've got Councillor O'Brien.

Yes, Councillor Sam, wonderful to see you. You're doing really good as chair, thank you. Thanks. And the guy next to you has got a great smile, and I'm coming to see him and two other councillors because that's my next— oh, yes, same question. Sorry, I'm I'll jump in with a question. LGNZ is actually, one of their suggestions was that the removal of the exemptions for— Yes, I know, but rates. Yeah, on Crown land. Is that something you would support? I've seen the call before and it's not going to work. I wish it would, but it's not going to work. Because come on, a lot of you people have been either on school boards or you're parents of kids and you know that you're just shifting, if you say to your local school, school, and there's 2,500 primaries and 500 secondaries in New Zealand, because I'm a teacher, I used to be there, done that. But you get a hell of a kickback from all the school boards in New Zealand because they say, come on, we can't afford it. All the schools are run on a smelly rag. And so just, that's just pushing the debt. I would like it, but I think we should come up with some other sort of funding mechanism. Can I have my last question just on, because that's finished that question. All I want to do is say that I'm coming to the Grants Committee to advocate for Smart Newtown because Smart Newtown is wonderful in Newtown and some of the funding's being withdrawn from it and we're going to fight to the death on it. Thank you, Councillors.

Thank you, Bernard. We're out of time, but thank you for your submission and giving us some notes as well. Kia ora. Thank you. Okay, we next have Laurie Stevenson. Welcome, Laurie.

Good night. Excuse me, could you pass these around? I've got 9, so not enough, but yeah.

Okay, welcome, Laurie. You've got 5 minutes and yes, and please allow time for questions.

Okay, cool. All right, just so you know, everyone calls me Laurie, not Lawrence. That's only for my mother when I'm being naughty. My focus today is around parking and I'll try and keep this short and sweet like me. We are a refrigeration or commercial refrigeration company and HVAC company, Below Zero Limited, and we trade at Switch. You might have seen our vans around, the one with the polar bears on the side. We've got a fully functional service division. We also do design work, installations across all areas for new homes, fit-outs, new cool store complexes. We employ 14 staff and we are proud Wellingtonians. We've been in business since 2003. Since then we've navigated GFC and I have to say I think the last 3 years have probably been the worst. We've been burnt by about $100,000 out of pocket with people going under, but we're knuckling down and working hard to turn this around. So typically in Wellington, we look after all of the McDonald's, we look after Moore Wilson's, we do quite a lot of the Subways, work at the airport, and we also provide IQP services for mechanical buildings. So I've been doing this since I was 18, so about 40 years now. I did 20 years on the tools in New Zealand and London, and I've been a GM at the company I'm at with now for 14 years. So what I'm— I guess what I'm trying to say is our infrastructure or our trades, they're not optional. They are actually critical in keeping Wellington running. And I just want to say as well, you acknowledge the council's vision for a green, walkable, bike-friendly city. I want to state clearly that I'm not anti-cycleway, but rather looking for a workable compromise to keep essential services functional. We're also personally ourselves very focused on the environment. We are right ahead of the whole thing with doing CO2 conversion. If you don't know what that is, That is basically a refrigerant, a natural refrigerant, which has only got a GWP, global warming potential, of 1, as compared to R-404, which is still used in a lot of systems, which has got a GWP of 3,922. This means that if it leaks, it stays in the environment for up to 14 to 53 years in the— above us and retains heat. I'll move on. So basically everyone's trying to move away from synthetic HFCs, and you will see a lot more hot water heat pumps going to CO2, which is fantastic. To give you an idea, a 3-kilowatt element that you probably most have got in your houses at the moment is drawing 12.5 to 13 amps, where the new technology has dropped that down to 2.5 to 5 amps. So the core conflict, the physical reality of trade vehicles cannot be replaced by e-cargo bikes or public transport. Often we have close to 500 kilos of gear in a trade vehicle. As much as we'd like to go electric, there is nothing for us that can replace the diesel vehicles that carry that payload. You'll see in some of the things that I've sent out there, you'll see one of our vans in there. So the weight of the work, and this is the reality, okay? The payload. So breaking down exactly, generally when we go to a service call, we might have to take a nitrogen bottle, 19 kilos, recovery plant, 13 kilos, vacuum pumps and reclaim units, 12 kilos, refrigerant cylinders from 11 to 24 kilos, tool bags, diagnostic gears, and ladders, 10 kilos per ladder, 15 to 20 or 30 kilos per tool bag. So the total weight frequently exceeds 90 kilos per technician. I also haven't included the likes of gauges, meters, scaffolds, jenny hoists or duck hoists that we might, might have to get to site. So the reality is here, carrying 90 kilos of hazardous gas bottles, heavy pumps and ladders across multiple city blocks because you can't get near the location where you're trying to attend is a major workplace health and safety hazard and we have injuries because of that at work. Case study in point, the Adelaide Road bottleneck and Wellington City Mission. So for a long, long time since we've been in business, we've always really supported Wellington City Mission because we love what they do, such an amazing place. But now Adelaide Road, there's no parking. So I think they've got 3 car parks outside the front of their building and there's a couple of car parks on Douglas Road Parkless Street on the other side of the road. So at the moment we can't attend. Okay, so we go there, there's no parking, can't do anything, so we're leaving. And that breaks our heart because we want to look after them. They're just an amazing— they're an amazing thing.

Laurie, just to let you know, you're just coming to the end of your 5 minutes.

Am I? Okay. Oh, rightio. Okay, well, I'm way short, so okay, thanks.

All right, allow just one quick question from Puebi Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks Thanks for coming in, Laurie. Just quickly, are you here today to specifically ask for more loading zones? Yes, kāpai.

Yeah, exactly. Loading zones and any kind of other parking will allow service vehicles to get to the buildings that they're working in, which used to be in the '90s. We used to have service parks.

They all went. So specifically, are you saying like areas where there are none, and you've indicated Adelaide Road as one? Yeah. There's a pretty big road. Are you saying we've got no, none at all?

There's no parking. No loading zones? I can't see a loading zone on there when I go up there.

Thank you. Appreciate you coming in. Thank you. Thank you, Laurie, for coming in. We next have Linda Beadson. Welcome, Linda. Kia ora. My name's Linda Beadson. I live in Wellington. I'll do a quick introduction because some of you people have seen seen me hundreds of times up here, but there's a few new faces. I live in Wellington and I use my bike for most of my daily activities. That's work, shopping, entertainment, etc. We do have a car which mostly sits in the garage. It wasn't always the case that I used my bike most of the time. I rode as a child Sorry, we can't have conversations at the back. Thank you. It wasn't always the case. I rode as a child and then at university. I moved to Wellington in the late '80s to work, and I didn't buy a bike again until living in Wellington until 2011. For the next 2 years, I rode it when I went up on the weekends to to my friend's holiday house in taki because the idea of riding a bike in Wellington was just completely ridiculous. So in 2013, I discovered that I had a health problem which made walking painful, and so I started— got on my bike and started to brave the extremely scary Wellington roads. I was later diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and you'll be pleased to know that now I take loads of drugs and my feet don't hurt. But by the time I got that sorted, I was kind of already like in the, in the way of riding a bike, even though it was pretty scary. So I'd like to congratulate the previous councils on the amazing transformation that has happened so far on the roads. It's been able to make riding actually a real option for people. So it's not, it's kind of patchy, but where it's actually connected and people can get, say, from like Newtown into town, you know, that just meant that a whole lot of people went, "Oh, actually it was too scary to go on the road. I wouldn't even think of it, but now that I can see that lane where I'm not kind of, you know, debating the toss with traffic every day, I could actually do that." So we need to keep going doing that. I'm asking you to vote for Option B to keep funding the bike lanes. So bikes free up the roads for people who do need to ride, like Laurie who was just here. Obviously, if you've got sort of 400 weight of whatever you've got to do your business, you're not going to be taking that on a bike. However, when I'm riding to work in the mornings, I go down Willis Street and most of the cars, most of the traffic is a car with one person in it. I don't know what those people are doing. You know, they're clearly, they're not tradies, they're not carting loads of stuff, they're probably just going to work or going shopping. Some of those people might ride a bike if it was, you know, there was a proper path, if it was safe, and if it was convenient and connected. If you find that you've got a network and then somewhere you've got a sort of a kilometre that has got nothing, that might as well be 10 miles. I mean, if you're an adult, you might choose to do that, but you're not going to send your child on there. But if the thing is connected and going to be convenient and comfortable, then you go, well, there's the way that you go. That's, you know, that's completely obvious. So I'd implore everybody sitting around this table, you are city leaders, you're making decisions that shape our city. I want to have a city that is livable, that is walkable, that is bikeable, that's got good public transport, where we're lowering our emissions, most of which in Wellington come from transport, So there's an opportunity there where we've got more biodiversity, where we've got arts, we've got conservation going on, and people in this, around this table have got more impact on what happens in our city than our national government. So we don't need to worry about like the national government might be making things like a little bit hard. You are the leaders, so please be bold. Be brave, and build on the momentum that we already have. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. I don't see any questions. 23 seconds. Thank you, you did very well. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming in. We next have David Lang from Cycle Wellington. Welcome, David.

Kia ora koutou, ko David Lang toku ingoa. I'm representing Cycle Wellington's submission. We strongly support Option B to keep the programme as budgeted in the Long Term Plan. Wellington has made great progress, but that's at risk if the cycling budget is slashed. Paint is not protection. People on bikes deserve physical protection from busy traffic. With a new path from the hut to Ara Tupua which opened just at the weekend, we need our council to pick up the pace and complete the biking network. Bike lanes deliver benefits to everyone in our community: affordable transport, better mobility for those who can't or don't drive, better health, less noise, safer streets, less congestion and lower transport bills, and of course climate protection. While affordability is an issue, bikes are the cheapest form of per— efficient personal transport. Services such as Eke Rua Re Bicycle are overwhelmed with demands for access to affordable bikes, and more people are turning to bikes to get around. But in the middle of a fuel crisis, a climate crisis, and an affordability crisis, slamming the brakes on cycling projects makes no sense. Wellington's growth in cycling supported by the bike lanes is already clear in many parts of the city. Completing the cycle network Pāneke Pōneke unlocks that improvement for many key journeys in Wellington and bridges the gap that currently hold people back from cycling for transport. Closing the gaps on key journeys unleashes a network effect as much as a wider group of people become happy to ride. The central city connections will play a critical role in this network effect. They'll provide the last section for many trips from city centre to city centre destinations from north and south corridors that already have bike lanes without concentrating those riders onto the busy waterfront. We understand that money is tight, but bike lanes are among the cheapest and most effective transport improvements that a city can make. The 20-year timeline for completing Paunakea-Pornakea is already a significant slowdown from the original 10-year delivery plan. Further cuts would undermine progress. Losing expertise and momentum will damage the council's ability to keep delivering the improvements we need. Funding is a key part of the puzzle, but talent, expertise, and delivery capacities is harder to obtain. A program like the bike network cannot be stopped and started without increasing both the capital and opportunity costs significantly. We asked some of our supporters what they thought about bike lanes and the plan to cut investment, and here's a few quotes. When more bike lanes are built, I'll feel safer on the road. With protected bike lanes, people feel safe enough to use their bikes for everyday trips. We need to build the whole network, especially during this time of high fuel prices. People need more choices of how to get around. You don't have dead-end streets that cars go down and then they can't get to where they want to go. We should give the same respect to people that are on bikes. It just makes more sense in a fuel crisis that the thing you would look at building is not more roads. Building a bicycle lane doesn't actually cost that much money, and cancelling a bike lane is like building a house but not building the kitchen. Let's get those bike cycle routes complete. I think that's about it for me.

For any questions? Thank you. Any questions? No, I think you've been really clear. Thank you for coming in and making your submission. Thank you. We next have Felicity Wong. Welcome, Felicity. Yeah, you can sit at the table or podium, whatever you prefer. Hello everyone, kia ora koutou. 26% of Wellingtonians don't feel the city is lively and attractive, but 77% of residents support heritage, and History Places Wellington seeks a city history and tourism regeneration fund to support the maintenance of historic areas. Community-led tourism, and retention and development of trade skills. We ask for assistance to be given to building and property owners to encourage upgrades and maintenance to make the retrofitting of buildings with history more affordable than new builds. We support retrofit and conservation and advocate for repair and reuse over demolition and deterioration. HPW asks the council to prioritise the retrofit and reuse of old buildings to efficiently use expensive materials, support local employment, and reduce carbon emissions. Adaptive reuse should be our default preference over demolition and empty car parks. And it's such welcome news that the historic Dixon Street Flats are on track to open fully occupied, 120 homes modernised and refurbished by the end of the year. A sad contrast, however, is the carbon crime being committed by Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington's demolition of the 80-unit Gordon Wilson Flats by not simply removing the tatty, heavy façade and replacing it with a lightweight glass frontage. The remaining 80% of that building is not earthquake-prone, and the enormous amount of embodied carbon in its sturdy concrete skeleton is instead going to the landfill. We want a strengthening of local planning rules to prioritise adaptive reuse and protection of areas with history. We view those places as drivers of local economic regeneration, civic pride, and sustainable development, and we ask you to retain heritage funding in the budget, which is not a very big amount. We support right-sizing our city plans and budget, focus on renewals and maintenance, not upgrades, in the city's enormous transport budget. And January's transport report continued to use misleading data for population growth, referring to 25% population growth expected in Wellington City Actually, we're 2,000 fewer people than in 2018. So don't accept the continual flights of fantasy. A sensible approach is a maintenance mode of renewals, at least until we pay down some of the city's debt. Thank you. Thank you, Felicity. Is there any questions? Councillor Chung.

Thank you very much, Felicity. Do you think that we offer adequate protection for a lot of our older buildings, or do you think that the cost of actually restoring them is actually just too high for people, so they feel as if they don't have a choice but to actually have them demolished?

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. There's a number of things that building owners ask for. They ask for rates relief, they ask for expert advice, and they ask for a City Council that gets them to yes for investing in their buildings, including adding extra storeys on the top. And I'll give you an example. In the historic Dixon Street flats, the City Council asked the new building owner to make much wider elevators which would have been hugely costly. In actual fact, because of the existing use rights and the heritage nature of the building, they were able to say, no, those elevators have been working perfectly well for 80 years, do not put that additional cost on us. Thank you. We've got one more question from Councillor Rogers.

Thanks, Felicity. I believe earlier in your speech you referred to how efficient and cost-effective the restoration of historical buildings was. I was just wondering how you reconcile that with your request for subsidy in your submission for people who own those buildings?

Yeah, I'm not so much asking for a subsidy as asking for an easy track so that retrofitting can be achieved more easily so that obstacles are not put in the place of building owners who want to adaptively reuse heritage. Heritage has to have a modern use, and it has to be modernised with a commercial return. So I very much would endorse the Council recognising the economic value of adaptive reuse. Thank you. We're out of time now, but thank you for coming in, Felicity. We next up have Steve Cosgrove. Welcome, Steve.

Kia ora katoa. Steve Cosgrove ahau. Lovely new environment here, thank you. This is what democracy is all about. It's great to have the ability to come and see you. There's no more bull spot cam, which I really like, and, and lots of space. Space is good. The— so of course you have to remember that there's only so many of us who are able to come to these events. I do a lot, you know that, um, but many people can't. And so in terms of democracy, you have to look at what are the other avenues that people have. The main one Well, I always say, especially emphasising, I mean, there are several of you sitting on that side of the table actually who tend to disagree with me a lot, and that's cool because you have your constituency and you need to support, find ways to support the people who you believe are voting for you. And they, despite all that you're reading in the media, especially social media, the councillors who stood in the last election, most of them got reelected, which says something good. We are doing good things, but you are in a difficult situation to navigate away. Now, how do I move this next slide along? Ah, there you are. Right. Push the button. Nope. There we go. So arts. Oh yes, sporting arts today. The, yeah, it's Really, the thing that concerns me most about country in general and Te Whānau Nui-a-Tara in particular is rangatahi who are leaving the area, and in the case of nationally, leaving the country. I'm really, really scared that we're developing this two-time, you know, big gap between the people who are staying are the ones who have established wealth, established privilege, and we're importing cheap labour, which is not a good solution. And I urge you to do what you can to retain that age group within our city. Great to see those of you who've been around for as long as me know the history of— I don't think that building is called The Oaks anymore, but many of you know what we're talking about. Great to see it's being used and It's interesting that the whole— this is actually my son's view, but it seems to be confirmed what I've seen— is that the arts area is moving. The area where young people are going is moving down to that Dixon Street, Cuba Street area, because that's where you've made it nice to be. You've made it more pedestrian friendly, you've made it a good place to hang out. Cars don't buy things— oh, you've heard that before. Someone else earlier mentioned that whole thing about Christchurch and Wellington. Sadly, the situation is going to remain that we're going to continue not to vote for National Party, which means when there's a National Party in government, we won't get any funding. I don't want to see a big earthquake, but it is rather noticeable that where— that the two cities that have had the most money spent on them both appear to be coming up better in the current financial crisis. That'll do. So I watched last Thursday's submissions and saw many life forms, most of them were human, but some were not, but knew very little about cycling, which is the basis of my next slide, which is now out of date by, I'm guessing, democracy services sort things out to make this happen. Too many people supporting cycling today, so in recognition of the 10 years that Councillor Culvert has been disagreeing with me, I'm not going to say anything else about cycling today, but you can still read my slide anyway. Oh, there it is. You can read the slide anyway. But I do want to tell you my latest anecdote was taking my mokopona to school. She's been riding to school for the whole 2 years she's been at Clyde Quay. We cycle from Newtown down those beautiful cycle lanes where we can. And I watch the concentration. On her little 6-year-old face. And there's not many things that a 6-year-old will concentrate on for half an hour twice a day. And that is just another of the many, many benefits of cycling. And the other point I made, particularly after Councillor Randall asked Dr. Nick about his support for cycling, and there's many in my generation who don't support cycling, but If you stop that support, I see this as this Council's Three Waters situation. There's lots of things where you can put off spending, but things you don't spend money on now are often going to be a cost, a mokopuna, a much greater expense in the future years. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Steve. We're out of time for questions, but whilst I disagree with you sometimes about your cycling comments. We do agree on dragon boating, so we do have something in common. And just to let you know that people were given a choice of times when they wanted to present to us, so it was really self-selection and then just filling in the gaps. So yeah, Thursday was very interesting.

Never knew about that, the research lab, until then.

Yeah, okay, thank you for coming in. Thanks. Okay, we next have Marilyn Wells. Welcome, Marilyn. Hi, everybody. Hey, and you have 5 minutes, and if you want to allow some time for questions, if you could do so within that time. Excellent. Oh, can you just turn your mic on before— Is it on now? Yep, excellent. Thank you. Okay, I'm talking about bicycling first. I just want to say that bicycling is a really good transportation option. It's a good exercise option, and it's also at this political moment in time, it's really economical. It's going to keep Wellington moving. Then the other thing I want to talk about was the Plant Conservation Lab at Otari-Wilton Bush, where they do seed biology research. I would like to keep this funded because it is the cornerstone of all the volunteer planting that goes on in the whole Wellington region. We get plants from Forest and Bird, we get plants from the city, we get plants from DOC, and they're all using that information that's coming from the Otari-Wilson lab. So that's a big item for me. I'm done. Excellent, thank you. You've been very clear. Now, I just say, oh, we have a question from Councillor Foone. Kia ora, Marilyn. Can I take it from your submission that you, you, you, you, are you using a bike to get around yourself? I sometimes use a bike and I sometimes walk. Yeah, those are my two choices. Right, so is what the infrastructure that Council's put in place working for you? I— it makes me nervous, a lot of the infrastructure, because like when I bicycle on many separate lanes, all the plastic posts, there's only like 10% of them left, and that makes me nervous because I think, how did they get knocked down? And they're not being replaced. So that, that is a concern I have of safety, and that's why very often I walk, because I feel safer on the footpath than I do on the road. Thanks, Marilyn. Okay, thanks. Thank you. That's the questions. Thank you for coming in and taking and sharing your thoughts with us. We next have Hira Cook. Welcome, Hira. Do I need to turn this on? I think it's already on. I can hear you well. Kia ora. Just make sure you speak into it. That's great, thank you. Kia ora. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My submission was about the Airbnb proposals and about the proposal to cut arts funding in Wellington. I submitted in support of the proposal to prevent units being let for Airbnb, but to permit people to continue letting rooms within their own homes for Airbnb guests. I have been having Airbnb guests for 7 years now. Many of them are people who are coming for 1, 2, or 3 months, um, who are students or researchers or whatever, and they— there's not a lot of alternative accommodation for them. Eh, now my second, eh, main point was about the proposal to cut arts funding, and what I have learned is these things are definitely not separate. Tourism is really important to the Wellington economy. Big one-off events and even festivals only work in the context of an exciting city because people are here for longer, and we also want the people who come And they're not coming for one-off events. Very, very few of my guests come for one-off events. They need an exciting city, and the arts funding really contributes to that. It's not a lot of money for the level of transformation of the city that the whole range of artists whom we have provide. I would also like to say, and I've just been reminded of this as by the previous two speakers. I'm a keen commuting cyclist and I have been for the last 35 years, but the trail bikers are making our bush frightening. We cannot keep putting in more and more tracks where trail bikers crisscross walking paths. We need to limit the areas that the trail bikers can use. They have a whole mountain at the top of Kooroori. Most of them appear to drive to the place where they do their trail biking. We don't need to give them more. We need to think about old people and kids and dogs and chronically ill people and them feeling safe. I've spent the last 5 years looking after my parents and one of my aunties. Two of those people have died now, but I used to try and take them into the bush, and it's getting harder and harder. Okay, so, oh, and we need signage to tell cyclists on Oriental Parade that people have priority, that it is not a commuting lane of the road. That's all I have to say, thank you. Thank you, you've been very clear. Is there any question? I can't see any questions from anybody. Thank you. Okay, we next— is Yvonne with us online? Oh, Yvonne there. Oh, you're here in person. Yeah, sorry. Oh, welcome. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. Yes, I'm here in person today. In April I turned 65 and I've lived in the eastern suburbs on and off most of my life in Rongotai and in Lower Bay. And as a child I learnt to cycle in Miramar South School and cycle to Evans by Intermedia as well. I'm now a proud owner of an e-bike and also just recently bought a non-e-bike to try and get a bit more fit. Transportation of cycling is 60 kilometres on average a week for me and about 10 kilometres for my poor car that's slowly starting to rust away. I've made a submission on various long-term plans and annual plans in support of spending for cycleways, and this is also a submission in relationship to supporting the cycleways and spending as much money as possible. I think it's option B that you're looking at trying to spend as much money as possible on cycleways. The Evans Bay Cycleway, the Onepu Cycleway, and all the connecting ones from the suburbs are really great and world-class, I'd have to say. Orendal Bay this morning was fantastic, and the sun was rising and I realized that I didn't have to worry about sun strike and cars behind me not being able to see me even though I was brightly fluorescent and had flashing lights. I didn't have to worry about the sun strike, I could just enjoy the moment and it was brilliant. The peace of mind of cycleways is really great. Unfortunately, as soon as you come into the city, that doesn't happen. There isn't the cycleways and the connections, and so I'm in constant conflict from Oriental Bay onwards in relationship to pedestrians, cars, dogs, and waterfront events with their setup and takedown. And I think I also make what I call a number of illegal maneuvers to actually cycle around things and buildings and get through. Through the waterfront. And this is actually quite a big nightmare for me, and I wouldn't, I don't think you'd expect cars to actually have to endure this, trying to get from Oriental Bay through to where I work in Waterloo Quay. It should be a safe and secure pathway for a cyclist. It's the connections along the waterfront and Featherston Street and Victoria Street, and then the cross connections that really need to be improved. In Wellington city. And with Te Ara Taupua, the pathway between Petone and Naranga Gorge coming with increased cycling— today people are just talking about 3 or 4 times the number of cyclists is what they've normally seen cycling, and it could be a lot more than that. So it's a good thing, and businesses actually develop with cycleways. In Te Aro, Mt Vic, and Island Bay, there are new cycle shops. There are cafes that are actually thriving with bikes as long as they have a bike area that people can park their bikes securely. Or, and my local Pak'n'Save has this great little cycling area that you can put these cycles in, and there's normally 3 or 4 cyclists dropping off and picking up groceries in there at night. So I think you sort of go and talk to the Pak'n'Save Kilbirnie owner and what he's done. Only small interventions can actually improve cyclists' connections. And so it's the Keys and the Victoria Street and Featherston Street and those connections that I'm looking at. I also think the council should be funding bicycle initiatives like Bike Space and Eko Ruarewa Bicycle. I see I've got 1 minute 14. I will say that for the short-term accommodation, I am in favour of what you're proposing in relationship to units and houses being rated accordingly to commercial. In the local area of Lyall Bay, there's quite a few Airbnbs, and this actually causes accommodation issues in relationship to people trying to find rental properties and also buy houses. So I actually think if you have a commercial operation as an Airbnb for the entire house or the entire unit, then it should be rated accordingly. That's my submission. Thank you. That was good. We have a question from Councillor Tiffenbaker.

Yes, so earlier on we had one of the submitters point out that long-term rentals are also a commercial activity. Now, obviously, if we were to put up the rates on long-term rentals, that would put up the rates cost as well. How do you marry that with short-term rentals are bad, long-term rentals I think potentially I'm surrounded by short-term rentals in my area.

Both my neighbors are short-term rentals. There's quite a high turnover for that. A lot of people— like one, one house is constantly having young couples that come in and then find a house and buy it in the area and move on. Twice the last two couples have done that. And I mean, yeah, It is a commercial activity, but normally you're trying to supply rental property for someone for a longer time period rather than just like— Airbnb's in our area often are like a short-term weekend or, you know, week sort of length of time, so it's more like a hotel. So that's why I see it more like a commercial activity rather than a rental property. Thank you, that's all the questions, and thank you for coming in, Luan. Thank you for hearing me, thank you. We next have Sigurd Magnusson, welcome.

Kia ora everyone, and actually Paul, it's worth, very much agreed with some of the comments I just heard about the difficulty in the connections across the CBD. There's all these wonderful links now out to Petone and all around, and just thinking about some personal circumstances, that's something I've also struggled with. So it's great to hear some of the other presenters. So I'll touch a little bit about me and then a couple issues that I want to speak about in terms of spending and transport and climate and a couple of other matters. So I'm a Wellingtonian. By that I mean I was born here, I've lived here, I've studied here, I have my father here, I'm a business owner here, so through and through. And generally I've, my my business has all been in the Lambton Ward. I've also got Norwegian heritage, hence this shirt. This jersey is in relation to the fact that it was Independence, or rather Constitutional Day, in Norway, which is about 2 centuries old. Now, I love the Wellington compact nature. It's a walking city. We've got cafes, we've got arts, we've got gardens, we've got beautiful weather sometimes. And it's a lovely place, but clearly what we want is we want business to thrive, we want everyone to thrive, all the people thrive depending on their circumstances and ages and so forth. And I guess really what I was thinking on when I was looking through the plan for the year is, you know, obviously this whole financial tension which has been around for quite some time, and I think the sort of two words for me is really simple and soon, right? So, you know, when we're doing, you know, when ratepayers are contributing, you know, their money, We really want to see things delivered simply and we really want them soon. Now simply doesn't mean bad, like bad quality, just focus on getting them done and focus on getting them relatively quickly. Because as they grow in time or in budget, that's when they start getting, you know, kind of opposition and attack and so on. So, you know, and when I think about that, you know, we were just talking or hearing about cycleways, very clear there. You know, obviously we've got some of those key connections in and I use those, but would love I'd love to see those finished, you know, simply and soon. There's all these things around climate response, which is another area that potentially is getting a downgrade in funding. Again, we need to take some really key steps around that in terms of emission reduction, in terms of adaptation. We've obviously got Moa Point, all the sewerage systems, we've got all the drainage things to deal with when we've got heavy rain out in Berempura and so forth, and all the general projects. It's wonderful, for instance, to see this new building and to see the new library library, you know, so there's all these things, but I guess ultimately we really want to make sure that those projects get delivered efficiently and effectively. And again, we're not wanting things that are really devoid of character, you know, like you need to have sufficient quality and zest and interest to them. But if we can manage to get the velocity and efficiency through, then I think that will really help with social license to buy in, and then obviously we don't have to push the rates up quite so high. Obviously, we need to keep the rates affordable. I think generally Wellingtonians are happy spending money on rates if they see that the dollars are being very well spent. So that's what I've got to say.

Thank you. Any questions? Nope, you've been really clear. Thank you for coming in and speaking with us. Thank you. Next we have Tom Kaye. Welcome, Tom.

Kia ora everyone, thank you for your time this afternoon. My name is Tom, uh, I live in Aro Valley. I've been in Wellington for about 10 years, 32 years old. I'm a renter in a flat, there's 4 of us in our house. I want to make 4 really quick points, 2 of them more substantially, 2 of them just quickly. Firstly, the cycle program. You've heard a lot from a lot of people already, so I'll just say I really support investment in the cycle network around Wellington. I bike almost everywhere, either walk or bike. I ride a bike that is older than me. It's one of the most efficient things we can do in terms of, you know, creating energy out of us as humans to move around, is cycling. So I really push you to invest in the finishing off of the cycle program. Secondly, I want to make a point around arts funding. Someone else mentioned it, but Wellington is Wellington because of the sort of creativity we have and the people we have. We're big because of things like Lord of the Rings and Taika Waititi and fly to the Concords. I live with an artist, my partner is an artist, and I can tell you that it is extremely difficult. If I had not have been working full-time, she would not have been able to do what she does and make Fringe shows and, you know, participate in all these different things that she's done. 99— well, it's maybe that's an overstatement, but most of the time if you are going out to a Wellington Fringe event or a Comedy Fest event and it is a small venue, venue and you are buying a drink, chances are the bar might be making some money, but that artist almost definitely isn't. The number of shows that my partner has made where you are barely breaking even for a good show is extremely high. So the least that you can do is support artists to stay in the city, lest they run off to Melbourne or Auckland where there's actually more people and, and more art happening. Um, thirdly, and this is a more substantive point I want to make, I would love to see, or see more attention in your planning given into things like what should be referred to as a blue-green network. You've got a green network plan, I think. I'm not sure if there's mention of funding it or expediting funding, speeding up funding in this, um, plan round, but there should be. We've just had a very serious flood event. It's happened before, it's only going to get worse in future. And when we had flooding in Auckland and Hawke's Bay, we saw huge investments from those councils into, um, things like making space for water. So Auckland in particular has a making Space for Water plan to try and avoid a situation where they end up with uninhabitable houses again in future. Now, granted, there were hundreds, if not a thousand, houses up, up there that they had to deal with this problem in. Wellington has maybe 40 uninhabitable houses, which hopefully makes the problem easier for you to address. There are some amazing minds in Wellington who could help us make space for water in our landscapes, people like Stu Ferrant. I understand the council's worked with him before, you've got a climate adaptation program for the South Coast. You should be throwing money at that and moving very quickly. I've presented to councils all around the country about making room for rivers and making space for water, and I can say with pretty much certainty that almost every one of those councils has since had some significant storm event where, you know, I could probably go back to them and say, I told you so, you should have made some space for some water in your landscape. So do it now, we're at cost you. Finally, I want to make the point that this process sucks. Like, I don't know what it's like for you, but these processes tend to prompt emotive responses from everyone involved. From yourselves, I see it, you know, rates are either great or they're— rates increases are either great or terrible, or increased spending is great or terrible, cycle lanes are evil or they're, you know, God's gift to our city. It's a terrible way to make decisions. and we come— you will have seen in my submission, you know, it's kind of a little bit emotive. I was frustrated replying to the questions that you put up, and that's what you get. You get those of us who care enough to come along, those of us who are prompted by some of you to come along. Um, you don't get a representative view of Wellington. You don't get a calm, rational, well-thought-through, how do we deal with the complex problems that we're dealing with kind of set of considerations from your constituents. So I just want to say that rather than doing this kind of thing, I would love to see you do more citizens' assemblies. Get a proper cross-section of Wellington, because you're not it. Sorry, we're not it either. Um, and make some decisions where you actually say to people, what are the trade-offs we should make as a city? How do we deal with rates increases or decreases? How do we deal with the cycle network that we've got? Should we invest here or not? That's how you make good decisions that you can then stand behind and not get voted out, you know, in 3 years' time. So, those are the 4 points I wanted to make, hopefully useful. Take a question if you want one. Thank you.

Sorry, Tom. Councillor Chung, you have a question? Yep, good question.

Talking about getting a cross-section of views across the city, do you think we should have more public meetings where we have it in the public at the Parliament Hall where we invite anyone who wants to come to come in and tell us what they think we're doing right and what they're doing wrong. I would much prefer citizens' assemblies still. Useful, but these things still tend to favour those who have the time to come along and who are nudged by yourselves to come along in the constituency. And you will, you know, sorry, but you will nudge people that you want to hear from and that sort of thing. And that's not what you need.

Great. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. And I have seen your social media, so thank you for putting information up online. That's all right. I do try and broaden my horizons, so there you go. It's working. Okay, now that's the end of our submissions until 5:30. Because we're taking a break longer than an hour, we have to vote to adjourn the meeting to 5:30. So I will move the motion to adjourn the meeting. Councillor Aroubaie— oh, so you've got a question? No, sorry, Chair, I'm just sending my apology for that 5 PM session. 5:30, which will only be for half an hour. So can I have a seconder? Are you going to second? Terti-second as well. And just so you know, there's no catering on because we're only going through till 6 o'clock. But this room will be closed during the break.

I don't have a remote, so that's a yes from me. Okay.

Anybody votes no will be banned outside of the standing orders. Good timing there. All right, okay, see you back at 5:30 for those ones here. Ah, sorry, I just thought it was like— Councillor Young, I'm glad you're on to it. Councillor Rogers, that is carried unanimously. Thank you. James Roberts and Monique Ladd, is that right? Yeah. So look, please come up. Thank you for accommodating us. And so you essentially have 5 minutes, and if you want to leave any time for questions, if you could do that within the 5 minutes. Thank you. Welcome. Tena koutou. Ko Lex Barker taku ingoa. My name's Lex. I'm here— oh, sure. Ko Lex Barker taku ingoa. My name's Lex, and I'm here today to submit in support of the proposal for a new rates differential for short-term accommodation providers. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and the two people I share my home and life with, James and Mon, who are here with today. Together we represent something pretty ordinary in Wellington: 3 30-something working adults, long-term renters trying to make a life in the city. I've been renting for about 12 years of my adult life. In that time, I've moved 10 times, not because I wanted to, but primarily because the housing available to us either kept falling short or simply became unaffordable. We're now fortunate enough to be renting a great house and looking— also looking at purchasing a home collectively, but it's difficult to find our home when we're in competition with commercial operators with deep pockets and looking for promising returns on investments. Shortly after we moved into our current rental last year, our neighboring townhouse became an Airbnb, and we felt the effects of policy settings that treat houses as commercial enterprises. We felt it in the parties and the noise late into the night, thumping through the walls. We felt it in our driveway being blocked, our cars and bikes literally trapped by guests who had no accountability to us as neighbours. We felt it in the persistent low-level anxiety of not knowing who would be coming and going each weekend in what is supposed to be a quiet, secluded shared driveway. And we felt it most acutely in the moments that frightened us. On multiple occasions, guests mistook our lockbox for theirs or tried our front door. On one occasion when I was home alone, the door unlocked, in what should have been my private and safe space, I heard the front door open and voices coming up the stairs. By the time I came downstairs, they had gone, but I'm fairly certain they were Airbnb guests who had simply walked into the wrong house. In a residential property, that doesn't happen. in a commercial operation with a rotating door of strangers, it does. This is what short-term accommodation looks like from the inside of the neighbourhood. Housing is a basic human need. It's the foundation on which people build their lives, their communities, their sense of safety and belonging. When we allow housing stock to be converted into commercial operations run by absent owners profiting from the housing crisis, we are treating homes as financial instruments rather than for— rather than places for people to live. Homes are for people, not profit. The proposed rating differential is by no means a silver bullet, but it is a meaningful step in the right direction. We also believe the council could go further and apply the full commercial differential of 3.7 times the base rate. If you're running a commercial operation, you should pay a commercial rate. That is fair, that is consistent, and it sends a clear signal about what the city values. Wellington needs homes for people, not hotel rooms masquerading as residential properties. We urge the council to carry out this proposal and to be bold about it. Ngā mihi nui. Thank you. Is that the end of your presentation? Oh, thank you. I wasn't sure whether others were speaking. Look, we've got a question. Councillor Matthews. Thank you, and you've raised a perspective that we actually haven't heard as part of this debate about the impact of neighbours. And I guess just to sort of test with you, you know, if you're staying in a hotel, you expect, you know, other people to behave like hotel guests, but it's not necessarily what you would expect from your neighbours in a townhouse. No, we lost the opportunity to build those connections with stable neighbours when the neighbouring townhouse was turned into an Airbnb. Yeah, it was hard on our whole cul-de-sac of townhouses. Yeah, we all had very collective difficulties that we ended up trying to pursue with the body corporate. Yep. Any other questions? No? Thank you, and you've been very clear with your presentation. Thanks for coming in. Thanks everyone. Okay, I think I saw Isabella? Hi, we just, because you weren't here on time, we just moved to the next speaker if that's all right. So welcome. I'm sorry about the confusion. That's all right. Ran across from the office in the end because we're quite close. Yeah, that's all right, thank you. Kia ora, Councillors. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm just keen to talk to one point in particular in the annual plan, which is the cycling budget. And it feels like we've been having these conversations in Wellington for quite some time. I think the city can feel really proud that it's come an incredibly long way from the heady days of 2014 and the Island Bay Cycleway to the point where its process has been so incredibly reformed that it's now best practice nationwide. And winning international awards. So as process nerds, that's really exciting for those who celebrate good process. We're also, as I said in my submission, we are absolutely on the cusp of unlocking the benefits of all that investment that has happened to date, and now is the moment not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but to finish that last little bit that brings the end of the bridge to the far bank and activate that whole network for people who would like to have the choice to travel by bike or scooter if they so choose. I was in Sydney over the weekend and saw their cycle infrastructure being used heavily by people in large mobility devices as well, which is I suspect, an unexpected bonus that we'll get, particularly in the central city where the footpaths are often crowded. So I think lots of other people will speak very articulately to the unlocking and the reinvigoration of the city that this will provide. The fact that we're in a fuel crisis, potentially the first of many, is material to this. I'd like to speak to one little point that I alluded to in my submission investor assurance. We know that the cycleway network of all the various projects that are currently under consideration at Council has a very high return on investment, really, really high. And that because cycleway projects, for various reasons, are put through the wringer of due diligence in the way that many other kinds of projects aren't, we can be really confident about its very, very good return on investment. This is material because investor assurance— and I'm sure some of you will have nerded out on this yourselves, but for those who aren't aware, there's a new suite of Cabinet Papers and various other documentation which you can read all about yourselves— there is a major move afoot to get significantly better due diligence information for public investments. It is focusing particularly on infrastructure, The upshot is that there is going to be much greater focus on options analysis and returns on investment for infrastructure investments in New Zealand. This is all well and good, and I'm sure Council has very good processes of itself. However, it behooves Council to bear this in mind when we're thinking about what projects to cut. In terms of the reputation that it will confer upon council, especially a council subject, like many, to potential impending rates caps, but particularly a council that is really keen to get a City Deal. As you will read in the Cabinet Papers, this extra scrutiny is being applied to government investments in infrastructure, crucially any investment that has any general taxation contribution is subject to this. The National Land Transport Fund is not, but every single road of national significance is currently drawing heavily on general taxation. So a City Deal, which will require a new appropriation from the government, will absolutely be subject to this new level of scrutiny. Even the RONs within City Deals will be subject to this new level of scrutiny. So, I would suggest having a bit of a Google through that, but— and the material's all up on Treasury's and Te Waihanga Infrastructure Commission's websites at the moment. But for a council thinking about what it wants to cut to send that signal of being fiscally responsible, the investor assurance scrutiny is quite material to Wellington City's reputation as an investment partner. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions? No questions. You've been very clear with your submission. Thank you for taking the time to come across to see us. Okay. We next have Matt Laurie. Hi.

Laurie. Laurie. Kia ora, everyone. Ko Matt Laurie ahau. I've met many of you. I look forward to meeting the rest of you. I am a born-again Wellingtonian. I grew up in Wellington and then for some deranged reason I went and lived in Te Tau Ihu at the top of the South for quite a long time. But I kept my connection to Wellington, to Poneke, and watched with great interest over the years to see how things changed. And for the most, I've got to say, things have changed for the best. This is a a far better city than it was when I was at Wellington College with Matt and Carl. It's a far better city than it was when I was at Victoria University. It is more vibrant, it is more diverse, it is more prosperous, it is more beautiful. I have watched with pride as Wellington has gone from strength to strength, from everything, everything from the waterfront to Zealandia to Wellywood, to the hospo music scenes, to the growth of the education sector. So much great stuff that has happened over the years. The one area where things have got worse, significantly worse, has been in the area of motor vehicles being allowed to monster parts of the city. This has made parts of the city less liveable, less hospitable, less popular. And at the same time, this direction did, however, create the opportunity for some heroic leadership. And we saw that, we've seen that in recent terms of council, where leaders have stepped up to that challenge and started to turn things around. And it has been fantastic. I think it's been one of the best things that has happened in Wellington in the last 25 years. I think that cycling and active transport has so much to offer, and I think Wellington today feels much more like a modern, progressive, exciting city because of the cycle lanes. And I know it hasn't been easy, but things are changing. And at the weekend we saw the launch of Te Ara Tupua. Now NZTA are estimating there's going to be 700 trips on that pathway a day quite early on. So let's say it's 300 people coming into town, where are they going to go? They can't all go onto the waterfront, they're going to want to go through town. I'm calling, I'm really asking you to stick with the mission and to continue in the investment when it comes to the cycle infrastructure, the active transport infrastructure. One of the other things I think gets missed is by giving people the option to get around on a bike or a scooter, you have made this beautiful city more accessible, more affordable, and more attractive to more people. And if you invest more in cycleways, you will increase that even more, and I think that'd be a wonderful thing to do. Um, one of the things that I love about riding a bike in Wellington is that I don't have to spend any money on transport. Which means I can justify spending far too much money on lunch. And you want more people spending more money on lunch. You also want people getting connected to where they live. And if someone rides to school or rides to work or rides to football as opposed to being in a car, they will develop a greater connection with that part of the town, of the city where they live. And I think that's something we should encourage. I also think there's something that gets missed in this whole discussion and that is productivity. Now, when I used to live in Wellington, I was actually somewhat infamous for always being late. These days, thanks to the cycleways, I'm not only always on time, I'm quite often early because the fastest way to get around Poniki is on a bike or scooter using the cycling network. I don't know if anyone studied it, but I'm sure that productivity will have gone up as a result of people having this much better way, much more effective, much more economic way of getting around the city. So that's it from me really, just to say that I get what it's like sitting in the seats that you're sitting in. I was a Nelson City councillor for 3 terms, What you're doing is not easy. I thank you for your service, and I just ask you to think beyond the next 3 years. Think 10 years ahead. Think what will make this city better 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now. And I'm pretty sure one of the things that will make it better is even more cycling and fewer people in their cars at the same time as everyone else. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Matt. You've been very clear and we're out of time for questions, but thank you. I don't think there was any anyway. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Okay, we next have Ian Wells. Welcome, Ian.

Kia ora. Kia ora. My name's Ian Wells. I'm new to Wellington. I moved here 2 years ago. We moved here to be closer to our grandchildren. And I'm the kind of person who cycles all around the city and moved from Christchurch. And I guess there's several observations. When I arrived here, I was very pleased to see cycleways going in like I was used to in my old city. Christchurch has like a secret transportation network spread all around the city, which is all cycleways connecting the city in new ways. So I'm very pleased to see you've done your work getting cycleways here, because it makes a big difference to how I feel. So I already thanked you. That's good. There's 3 reasons I want to speak up. I want to speak up in support of the original plan for funding cycleways and not to stop now. There's 3 reasons I can think of. You've heard many reasons from many people, articulate people speaking here. The ones that affect me most closely are, first of all, fuel crisis. I can have the— this is a time for the city when many people commute by car, and the cost of commuting is going up. And of course, they'll be looking at alternatives. When people look at alternatives, they want safe alternatives, and cycleways provide that. So we provide more options to reduce congestion and increase satisfaction of people's commutes. Another reason is this— the rise of e-bikes. And I know you've been going through many deliberations over the months looking at how to make these decisions about which projects to fund and which ones not, but I think some things have changed, and I count on you to ride with the changes. E-bikes— I didn't have an e-bike before I came here, but as soon as I arrived in Wellington, I realized I want I liked biking in a flat city. So, my e-bike flattens the city. And just for me, for anybody else who wants to do that. And extraordinary thing about e-bikes too is our children have, we have grandchildren. And now they're riding on the back of their parents' bikes up and down Arrow Valley and they love it. And that counts a lot. So it makes me think about— I know that cycling plan has been like a 10-year plan, a 20-year plan, but 20 years from now my grandchildren will be 23, and I think by then they deserved— well before then they deserved to have a cycle plan completed so they can enjoy cycling as much as I do. It's, um, And the final thing, just as on Saturday, I don't know how many of you were there for the opening of Te Ara Tapua, but what an extraordinary day. I just— there's thousands of people on bikes and walking, and people were walking with their kids. They were cycling with their kids if they were on the back, and just so many smiles. And I've seen, yeah, it's wonderful to have a city where that brings out the smiling and the enjoyment of being out on city infrastructure. It's been a long way, long time in the works to do that. So please continue funding happiness. We got a minute left. I wanted to put a separate plug in too for something I hadn't heard about before, and that is the Wilson Bush Trust. And there's an otari native plant conservation lab which was cut from your budget estimates. I request to put that back in for $110,000. And because that lab is doing research that actually applies to one of the other projects I like to help with, and that's doing planting of native trees. And the research coming out of there is really critical. It's actually surprisingly practical. Like, when you want to germinate seeds in this area for our local plants, what's— how can you increase the germination chances? For example, if you're dropping seeds by drones, how do you— how can you do that? How can you really scale out better conservation? This is one lab, and if they don't receive funding from you, they'll lose some of their little seeds.

Thank you. Thank you, Anton, for taking the time to come and speak to us. We've got a very quick question from Councillor Ruiti. Thank you, Chair.

And thank you and welcome to Wellington, Ian. Can I just ask a very quick question? You're saying, and let me be clear about this, you're saying that an e-bike makes cycling Wellington's hills easy? Yes. Thank you. It's too easy. I often feel I don't get enough exercise, but it is too easy.

Awesome. And thank you, Ian. I called you Anton before, that's the next Speaker, so apologies, but thank you for coming in. Do we have Anton van Beers online? Welcome, Anton. Kia ora, hello. Hi.

Yes, I've come in sick, so I'll try to grace you with my presence today.

Sorry for the confusion. That's my mistake. Okay.

And you'll forgive me, I haven't done one of these before. Okay. This is my first time giving it a go, sort of speaking my mind, I suppose.

Excellent. You have— can I just say, you've got— no, just let you know we've got 5 minutes, and if you want to allow any time for questions, you need to do so within that 5 minutes.

Perfect, that's all good. Okay, mine will probably be quite brief because I've gone through all the key proposals and I have thoughts and opinions on all of them, but I won't go through each one here. It does speak to there being a general need for the council to be saving money or otherwise changing its income in some way, and I get that. With the cycleway changes, for example, I understand that it's going to be about $7.1 million saved, I believe it says here, over the course of what this leg of the project would have been. But sort of speaking to what has been mentioned previously, I do wonder if this is a little bit of a short-sighted move. There's definitely some massive benefits to implementing these sorts of projects across the city, beyond just the fiscal, I guess, the fiscal side of it. And at the same time, looking at some of the other items that are being cut or being reduced in funding, a lot of these seem to be quite low in the amount of money that's being saved from it. The $255,000 reduction in Heritage, Resilience and Regeneration funds, for example, which I would imagine that that will have a massive impact to this particular need, but in terms of the council's overall budget line, it's relatively small. So I think, not to again ramble on too long, I would be curious to see for future consultations, for no better choice of words, it would be good to understand how some of these decisions were made, what the sort of, I guess, the rationale behind why you've decided to go through— go to— what am I trying to say? Why you've decided to pull X number of funding. Like, what is the actual options that got presented to make these decisions, I suppose. As a whole, again, I completely understand the need to find revenue in these trying times, and even though I would love to see the cycleways go forward as they were presented, I can also understand the need to cycle them back, no pun intended. But that's essentially all I've got to say on this. Apologies if it's a little, again, a little rambly, but That's me.

No, that's fine. And just so you know, what we came out with to consult with on the annual plan was something that the elected members worked up through. Not everyone agreed for everything to go out for consultation, but the majority did. And with the information and where we needed— we knew we needed to look at some of our services, and— but that's why we've come out to seek yours and others' views before we make our final decision. But thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Of course.

Thank you for having me. Okay.

We are now on to our last speaker, McKenzie Valgry. You know, we've got 5 minutes, and you should leave some time for questions if you want to within that. Thank you. Tēnā koutou katoa. My name is Mackenzie Valgrave, and I'm here representing the Wellington Labour Local Body Committee, or the LLBC, which represents Wellington-based members of the New Zealand Labour Party with respect to local government matters. We understand that the council is facing a strained fiscal environment. The term has already faced significant pressure from the central government, and has had to deal with various unexpected tragic events such as Moore Point and the recent floods. But we are concerned that the burden of cost saving might fall on working people. We are particularly concerned with the wholesale introduction of new fees to te matapehi and to i pōneke, and with a 0.4% cut in the council's social and recreation budget. It is not clear at this stage where the cuts will be coming from, and we strongly urge all councillors to ensure that there is no reduction in library, swimming pool, recreation centre, and community centre hours and programmes. These spaces are an equaliser in an increasingly polarised society and public institutions that should be strongly protected. I regularly make use of the facilities at the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre, and as a secondary school teacher with significant student debt, I get most of the books I read from the library. And I'm not alone. Research shows that physical activity levels are finally returning to what they were pre-pandemic, and usage of the libraries is increasing, especially since the introduction of the popular fees-free policy. The Wellington LLBC acknowledges the great work of some of the councillors here today that pushed that through. But at the same time as demand is increasing, services across the country are being reduced. Nationally, libraries were open for 74 fewer hours in 2022-23, and a third of families surveyed in a 2005 Sports New Zealand— 2025 Sports New Zealand report cited financial concerns in relation to their children playing sport. Working families should be able to participate in society, to stay connected, and to stay healthy. With the lack of transparency as to where the 0.4% cut is coming from, there is concern that the people who rely on these services and spaces the most may be the most impacted. Any reduction in these public spaces and services will be detrimental to working people and to communities. A further barrier to a dignified life. We encourage the council to maintain the good work from previous terms that has increased library use and seen our young people more active. We propose, concerning the fees for meeting rooms at Te Matapahi, some free meeting room bookings during opening hours at Te Matapahi for community groups and individuals. While large event spaces could have fees, There should be some private spaces in the library that are free to book. Relatedly, wherever possible, use commercial rates to subsidise community booking rates at all community— at all council facilities. There should be no increase in swimming lesson fees, no reduction in library, swimming pool, or community centre hours, no reduction in library, recreation, swimming pool, or community centre programmes. In some parts of Wellington, it feels like the city is coming back to life. I certainly feel that way in Te Matapahi, where I'm regularly bumping into colleagues, friends, and students from the school where I teach. We are making progress, and it's not a time to be making cuts to the services that sustain our people and our communities. Kia ora tātou. Thank you. Are there any questions, colleagues? No, we don't have any questions, but thank you for a very clear submission. Thank you. Now, colleagues, that brings us to the end of submissions for this evening. We will need to formally adjourn till tomorrow at 1:30. That is Tuesday, the 19th of May. And Councillor O'Brien will be chairing tomorrow afternoon. So I will move the motion to adjourn the meeting. Can I have a seconder, please? Thank you, Councillor Young.

I'll now put the motion to vote. Yes from me.

That was Councillor Osborne.

Correct. Thanks.

I recognized you. I recognized— And that is carried. Okay. See you all tomorrow. Except me. Yeah.