Wellington rates interactive map: See how much more you’ll be paying by 2028

• Typical Wellington rates bills are projected to increase by $3000 by 2028
• This is 50% higher than what ratepayers are currently paying
• Mayor Tory Whanau says this year’s rates rise was much higher than expected

The typical Wellington residential rates bill will be $3000 more expensive by 2028, which is when the current period of high rates increases is expected to end.

This will follow the latest rates increase, which averaged $1000 per household or 21%.

These figures, based on current projections, include Greater Wellington Regional Council and Wellington City Council rates and a new levy to pay for a facility to process wastewater sludge.

City council rates account for the lion’s share of these bills. Mayor Tory Whanau acknowledged this year’s increase would have come as a huge shock to some people and has promised it’s the worst it’s going to get.

“This is the price we have to pay for being in an earthquake-prone city that has had underinvestment in various areas for a long time”, Whanau told the Herald.

“It’s also consistent with the rest of the country ... other cities have the same sort of problems including water, high interest rates and insurance costs.”

It comes at a time when the capital is in a funk. Several buildings, including the town hall and the central library are closed for earthquake strengthening.

Precious drinking water is still being lost through leaks after the city ran the risk of running out of water last summer.

A triple blow of factors is driving an economic pinch – consumers have less money due to high interest rates, people are working and studying from home and the Government’s cuts to public sector spending.

Ten stores in Wellington’s CBD either closed or announced their closure in one week alone, including Pandoro, which shut all three of its Wellington cafes in one day, after 28 years in business.

Wellington's town hall, central library and council buildings are closed due to earthquake risks. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Wellington City rates increases are forecast to gradually fall over the next three years before reaching 5.4% in 2028/29.

However, this is only a projection and recent increases have proven to be considerably more than forecast.

In the last Long Term Plan (LTP), they were forecast to increase by 8.8% in 2023 but increased by 12.3%. This year the effective rates increase was three times what was forecast.

Whanau said this was driven by inflation, high interest rates, insurance costs, fixing earthquake-prone buildings like the town hall which suffered a surprise budget blowout last year and investing in ageing water infrastructure.

“We’ve had to put in way more than we envisaged in the Long Term Plan to put on water, which is $1.8 billion, so over 50% of the rates increase in this LTP is due to the increased spending on water.”

Previous rates forecasts were based on Labour’s three waters reforms progressing, Whanau said. The coalition Government scrapped those reforms when it came to power so, the council put together its current LTP on the basis water pipes would continue to be its problem to solve.

The coalition Government has now announced its alternative plan for three waters which will allow new council-owned water companies to access more cheap borrowing from the Local Government Funding Agency.

Mayor Tory Whanau has acknowledged this year’s rates increase would have come as a huge shock to some people and has promised it’s the worst it will get. Photo / Mark Mitchell

These council-controlled organisations (CCOs) will be able to borrow up to five times their revenue, which will come from water charges.

Councils in the region were still working through this new plan, Whanau said.

Whanau said she had heard commentary claiming most of this year’s rates increase was to pay for cycleways. This was not true, she said.

Her office confirmed cycleways accounted for less than 2% of all council spending over the next 10 years and accounted for 0.17% of this year’s rates increase.

Whanau said she will be sticking to her existing commitments on the campaign trail during next year’s local body elections.

“Actual nice to haves will not feature for some time. My campaign promise is actually going to be really boring.

“It’s very much we have a 10-year-plan where rates will decrease over time and includes a load of planning and building for the next generation, we want the next generation to stay here.”

Whanau said she understood the latest rates increase was hard to stomach because people were not seeing progress yet.

That was because the city is right at the beginning of a tough transition phase, she said.

“I can understand why people find this really frustrating. They can’t see where it’s going but my goodness in 10 years’ time we will have a city we can be proud of.”

By 2027, the town hall and the central library will have reopened and work to remove cars from Courtenay Place and revitalise it will be nearly finished, Whanau said.

Asked recently whether Wellington was dying, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Wellington had a great future but it needed to get focused.

“That was my message to all city councils in the last few weeks which was to focus on the big stuff, the things that make a difference, that make a city function better and work well.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Wellington was a fantastic place to live but had been hit the hardest by the Government’s decision-making over the past nine months.

“You just walk down the street and you can feel that. You see shops closing and restaurants closing. You can see that in the downturn in the building and construction sector here in Wellington. So, it’s not just the public sector that is feeling the squeeze.”

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.

Chris Knox is data editor and head of data journalism at the New Zealand Herald.