City's levies will force health cuts

Health officials say services will be reduced in order to meet city council growth levies on the proposed North Shore Hospital extension.

The project to replace the emergency department and build new wards is scheduled to start in October and will cost $48 million.

It has been assessed for $1.1 million of developer contributions by North Shore City Council.

Waitemata District Health Board chairman Lester Levy appealed to city councillors yesterday to scrub the bill, calling it a local body tax on a government investment in North Shore health services.

He said councils had waived other projects with a significant "public good" element.

North Shore City had excluded Carmel College's new classroom wing from its growth levy, Auckland City had made a token charge of $6300 on the MercyAscot Hospital extensions and Waitakere City charged nothing for the new West Auckland mental health building.

Questioned by councillors, board acting chief executive Rosalie Percival said the Government had a $200 million limit on capital expenditure for all of the country's hospitals this year.

"We have $48 million of that and that's all we can spend. So, we will have to trade off something else, like fewer beds or less imaging equipment."

Ms Percival said the levy had not been included in building budgets.

The council has a panel which reviews development contributions.

Its chairman, Grant Gillon, said the council's budget included the $1.1 million levy.

"We need to find that money."

The council's policy exempts new works at state-integrated schools because they are deemed to be Crown projects, like those for police stations or new courts. However, Mr Gillon revealed that the council had a legal opinion which stated that the board was legally defined as a "Crown entity" instead of the Crown.

The review panel decided to recommend to the full council that the board be deemed to be acting as the Crown and be exempt from paying the assessed amount.