Jenni, not her real name, has suffered years of financial and mental hardship from the CRL works in central Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Before contractors started digging a big trench for the City Rail Link (CRL) in downtown Auckland in 2016, Jenni, not her real name, received a $1 million offer for her retail business.
But business was booming at the time and she turned it down.
Seven years later the picture is very different. She is still in business in Albert St, but only just. Turnover has plummeted from $1.2m a year to $400,000, and that’s mainly from online sales and deliveries to customers.
Suppliers no longer make deliveries because there’s no parking nearby, and it’s a four-hour round trip in the traffic to pick up stock. The business has gone from employing seven staff to one loyal assistant standing by Jenni’s side.
These days, hardly anyone comes to the shop, hidden behind a fenced-off “war zone” of dust, dirt, and noise for the $5.5 billion project that will transform travel in Auckland after it opens, possibly in 2026.
With $400,000 owed to friends, family, and finance companies, Jenni is teetering on the edge, not just financially, but mentally.
Since mid-2017, the businesswoman has been undergoing treatment for depression.
Last year, Jenni was admitted to hospital. A discharge report from a psychiatrist at Counties Manukau Health said she had developed low mood, loss of pleasure, sleep disturbance, feelings of hopelessness, insomnia, reduced energy, and reduced concentration as a result of multiple stresses, including business difficulties, lack of government assistance in response to the roadworks affecting her business, and conflicts with her family.
Last week, Jenni was off work again. This time, her face, neck, and arms broke out into a rash. The cause? More stress.
Like the many desperate business owners and their harrowing stories the Herald has written about since the CRL works started going off the rails in 2019, Jenni wants to be fairly compensated.
After much hounding, the Government and the Auckland Council in late 2021 set up a $12m hardship fund for small businesses impacted by construction works, but the fund excluded businesses outside a narrow zone and was backdated only to February 1, 2021.
By the time the fund was announced, many businesses had gone bust or shut up shop. One victim was Antony Ariano. He handed back the keys to the landlord of his Da Vinci’s Italian restaurant of 10 years in 2021, a broken man, prescribed medication for depression and suffering from diabetes.
Unluckily for Jenni, her business has been dealt a double blow. First, impacted by the long-running construction works for the cut-and-cover trench up lower Albert St, followed by the seemingly endless closure of the intersection with Victoria St as part of the works on the underground Te Waihorotiu (Aotea) station.
When Jenni thought she was through the worst of the cut-and-cover works, she borrowed $400,000 to rebuild the business and had another offer, this time for $700,000, which was withdrawn when the prospective buyer learned construction was due to start again on the station works.
Jenni said her landlord has received $153,000 from the hardship fund in three-monthly instalments to cover her rent but wants more.
In an email to former Transport Minister Michael Wood in April, Jenni said she was still behind $50,000 on her rent due to an 18 per cent penalty and legal fees and must pay back three private moneylenders in full.
“The situation is critical,” Jenni told Wood, saying she wanted compensation backdated to October 2019 and to be paid rental assistance during a four-month period the hardship fund was closed during Covid-19 due to the government wage subsidy.
She argued the wage subsidy is different from rental assistance from the targeted hardship fund.
Since she wrote the letter, Jenni has upped her claim for compensation to $414,000, backdated to mid-2016 after learning the Government is planning support for businesses before it starts building a $14.6b light rail line from the central city to the Auckland Airport.
“I want to be treated the same as what is planned for light rail,” she told the Herald.
“If the CRL hardship fund had been planned at the beginning of construction, the business owners who were disrupted would have been able to maintain their livelihood on Albert St.”
In a response to Jenni on April 26, the minister’s office acknowledged this is a challenging time for businesses and that the Government is committed to providing support through the fund to help alleviate the hardship being faced by businesses such as hers.
The minister’s office referred questions from the Herald about further help for Jenni to a response from Auckland Council on behalf of City Rail Link Ltd (CRLL) and the sponsors (the Auckland Council and the Government, who are jointly funding the project).
Barry Potter, the council’s director of infrastructure and environmental services, said: “We are extremely concerned about [Jenni’s] wellbeing and the impact that construction has had on her business and her mental health.”
Potter said it was not appropriate to speak about any agreements or privacy issues to do with Jenni, except there had been an ongoing relationship with her that included significant support.
“We will continue to engage, offer her whatever support we can, and hope that she will accept our assistance, which is offered in good faith,” he said.
Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck said it was hard to imagine the devastating and life-changing impact the CRL project has had on people, their livelihoods, health, and family.
“Instead of focusing on growing their business, they have literally been in survival mode for years, and still no firm date for the CRL to be operational, which means the anxiety and uncertainty continues.”
Beck said a formal review of the hardship fund has been undertaken, including feedback from businesses who consistently want compensation to be backdated to 2019.
“We asked the Minister of Transport some months ago to expedite the review, given the levels of anxiety that remain amongst those impacted,” she said.
Last week, a copy of the review was sent to Jenni and other businesses feeling the pain of the CRL works. It widened the area for businesses’ access to the fund, and to owner-occupiers, but there was no mention of backdating compensation.
Jenni said she was more than disappointed. She was devastated that the Government and the Auckland Council could find $500m each for the latest blowout on the CRL, but couldn’t find it in their hearts to help her and others.
With mounting debts, Jenni said she didn’t know how she would survive.
Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Simon Bridges, who was Minister of Transport when work began on the CRL in 2016, said the Government should take a fair and liberal approach to all things concerning the operation of its hardship fund.
“The businesses concerned had no sense when this started how long it would go on for or in some cases how bad this would be for their livelihoods.
“In comparison to the overall cost of the CRL project, the costs of properly compensating businesses negatively affected by its slow uncertain construction are barely rounding errors,” said Bridges, who didn’t set up a hardship fund at the outset of the project.
A CRLL spokesman said as of April 30, $4.5m of the $12m hardship fund had been paid out to businesses. In addition, there was a support programme for small businesses to provide a range of services and help with things like wayfinding signage, promotional material, security, window cleaning, and sponsoring product giveaways to support affected businesses.
Jenni has a simple message for the politicians and the authorities: “Please save me and make me maintain my life.”
Motorists are advised to take care around the area.