Wellington City Council approves eight per cent rates increase

Wellington Mayor Andy Foster said council didn't want to put an 'unbearable burden' on ratepayers. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Wellingtonians will see their rates go up by 8 per cent after the latest council annual plan was adopted.

The hike is still less than a proposed increase of 9.1 per cent, which Wellington City Council had earlier been considering.

It comes on the back of interest rate hikes, inflation hitting a 30-year high, and a 13.5 per cent rates increase last year.

This year's annual plan has been a challenging process, mayor Andy Foster said.

"We continue to face significant cost increases to deliver existing services, respond to earthquake and resilience issues, Let's Get Wellington Moving, and increased investment in our three-waters networks, Te Ngākau Civic Precinct and the Central Library. We also face issues related to interest and depreciation costs and increased inflation costs."

Deciding on the rates rise was a balancing act to remain fiscally responsible and not put an "unbearable burden" on ratepayers, as well as to keep delivering services and maintain facilities to the expected level, he said.

Inflation had risen from 1.5 per cent from March 2021 to 6.9 per cent by March 2022.

"We know many people and businesses in Wellington have been financially impacted by the challenges over the past couple of years and that an average 9.1 per cent rates increase would be challenging," he said.

"Therefore, along with borrowing to offset the pandemic impacts and combined with $32 million in savings already achieved and forecasted, we are keeping rates as low as possible."

Some properties may have a lower or greater than net 8 per cent increase to their rates invoice due to the city-wide property revaluations in 2021.

Those revaluations showed an increase in value of 52 per cent on average.

If the increase in a property value was higher than the average increase for Wellington, the rates increase for that property will be higher than the average 8 per cent net increase.

The council uses property values to allocate the rates it needs to collect between all ratepayers – it doesn't collect more rates just because capital values have increased and it doesn't collect less rates revenue if values have decreased.