Waikato Business News July/August 2019

JULY/AUGUST VOLUME 27: ISSUE 7 2019 WWW.WBN.CO.NZ FACEBOOK.COM/WAIKATOBUSINESSNEWS
Let the campaigning begin
By RICHARD WALKER
Hamilton City Council chief
executive Richard Briggs is
asking some big questions as this
year’s local body elections loom.
Questions like, “What role
should Hamilton City
Council have (if any) in
affordable housing?”
And: “What position should
our council have on climate
change?”
And, really pushing it:
“What’s your vision for Hamilton?”
This is just a sample of
posers for potential candidates
included in a pre-election
report called Shape your City,
launched in July.
The reports are required by
law; the difference this time
round for Briggs rests in the
focusing of attention through
his questions.
My goal is that
we get as many
individuals with as
many diverse views
as possible standing
so that we can have
the community
engaged.
They are grouped under five
challenges he sees for the city,
including identity and managing
growth.
He talks of an ecosystem, in
which a tweak to one element
will inevitably affect others; the
key for candidates is to understand
that.
“Candidates can have a position
on anything; they can stand
for anything; they can make as
many promises as they like to
the community; that's entirely
on them,” he says.
Briggs says that might, for
example, see a candidate saying
they want to make Hamilton
the tech hub city of New Zealand,
to invest with subsidies for
tech companies, to reduce their
development contributions and
cut their rates. That of course
carries a financial impact.
“All I want them to say is,
well, this is how I think we
can fund it. And that way the
community can understand that
there are compromises.”
Part of the purpose of the
report is to engage, not only
with candidates but with voters.
Hamilton voter turnout during
local body elections has been
poor, and the report is not only
concerned with sharpening
thinking around the election but
is also part of a new approach
to fostering community engagement
more generally.
“My goal is that we get
as many individuals with as
many diverse views as possible
standing so that we can have
the community engaged, have
some opportunity to really test
whether or not these individuals
are going to stand up and actually
shape the city in the way
they are doing it.”
The question about the
vision for Hamilton comes
in the identity section, which
Hamilton City Council chief
executive Richard Briggs has
some questions on his mind.
Briggs says is relevant given the
number of people migrating to
the city - to the tune of about 40
a week. A large chunk of those
come from Auckland, he says,
and another chunk from smaller
towns, while he is seeing a
slight drop in migration from
overseas.
“One of the things that's
interesting though is we have a
population of about 170,000 but
there are a significant number
of people that move in and out
every day as well. They don't
get a chance to vote unless they
live here but we would still like
them to be informed, because
the debate we're trying to create
involves everyone.”
Wherever the people are
coming from, it pushes growth
towards the top of the agenda
for the city.
Growth was a big part of the
10-year plan discussions which
the pre-election report is, by
law, based on. Growth means
cost. That saw the city council
pass a $2 billion capital programme
to support the existing
city as well as growth infrastructure,
Briggs says.
“We know that we’ve got to
build out for the 10 year period,
so that’s quite expensive. It’s
step changes, so we’ve got to
build ahead of the curve.”
To that end, one of the possibly
more provocative questions
in the report is: “Are you
comfortable with annual rate
increases of 3.8 percent through
to 2028?”
Importantly for Briggs, that
is immediately followed by “If
not, what do you propose?”
The 3.8 percent is to ensure
the council has the capacity to
fund growth.
“And the outlook is for longer
than the 10 year plan. We
want to make sure that we don't
end up in a position where we
are constrained in year 11 by the
stuff that we haven't considered,
so we do a 30 year infrastructure
plan to cover that off as well.”
When the 10 year plan was
being finalised last year, there
was some well publicised disgruntlement
on the part of
developers over the contributions
they were facing.
It’s questionable, however,
just how many developers carried
out a threat that was in the
air to quit the city, and Briggs
describes council relations with
developers as good.
None of that is to say solutions
are simple. Even if development
can be taken off a council’s
books via special purpose
vehicles, someone has to pay.
And who should that be?
That is where the conversation
needs to change in the
community, Briggs says. “The
developers are saying the costs
are too high. Well, the costs are
what they are; the challenge is,
Continued on page 3
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