That increase is even less palatable than it otherwise would have been now that the country is facing a worst-case economic scenario amid Coronavirus.
This week the council released documents around its draft annual plan for 2020/21.
The uncertainty and negative economic impact Covid-19 will have on businesses and household has been considered, with two options prepared for councillors to consider.
The "high resilience" option includes 0.9 per cent for Let's Get Wellington Moving and 3.1 per cent for resilience projects like Civic Square and water infrastructure.
The other option is a rates rise of 7.9 per cent. Both are higher than the rates rise indicated in the 2018 Long Term Plan for year three, which was 7.1 per cent.
Council officers have reported they will continue to monitor the impact of Covid-19 on households and businesses and explore options for how the rates impact could be mitigated further.
The council has sought to minimise the rates increase by trying to save $3.2 million and taking on more risk to reduce insurance costs.
Service levels would be impacted if rates were to decrease further.
Infrastructure and resilience have put a strain on the council's budget between the $6.4 billion Let's Get Wellington Moving transport package, Wellington's water woes and buildings out of action because of seismic risks.
Wellington Water wants an extra $2.9m in operational funding to increase the number of condition assessments it undertakes, improve response time to leak detection, and put a focus on cross-connections.
This is on top of the $7.5m increase to Wellington Water this coming annual plan year from 2019/20.
A budget of $1.1m has been proposed for the Te Ngākau Programme to develop options for the city's largely vacant Civic Square.
The council has also had to shell out following the closure of the central library, with $6m to cover temporary library services and other impacts like the loss of commercial revenue and parking services.
But those costs will be nothing compared to what it will cost to actually fix the associated infrastructure.
Mayor Andy Foster said earlier this week that the council needed to focus on addressing these issues.
"It's clear through recent events with our water network, through our traffic congestion, and through our earthquake-damaged buildings, that we need to take action now."
Foster said the council had done its best to minimise the rates rise, and he was very conscious that Covid-19 would have an adverse impact.
"Therefore I have asked the chief executive to explore all practical options for how the rates impact could be mitigated further and to report back with options in June, when we are scheduled to finalise the Annual Plan and strike the rates."
