Wellington Scoop and Wellington City Council
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Irresponsible
- Wellington Scoop
- Over the next two days, Wellington City councillors will meet to vote through the 2024 Long Term Plan. Councils are required by the Local Government Act to have a current 10 year LTP, and to renew these by 30 June (in the case of Wellington) every three years.
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Destroying our past
- Wellington Scoop
- Heritage is contested by many and loved by others. The Mayor and Councillor McNulty want it as just a political whim. They’ve written a letter to RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop asking for the power to remove heritage buildings from district plan rules by a simple Council majority vote. The letter says this request is “on behalf of the Wellington City Council,” though it was never discussed by councillors.
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Toomath’s Buildings, Ghuznee Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6040, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Festival looks to future
- Wellington Scoop
- Judging by the two bikes outside (one mine), the Festival of the Future wasn’t for cyclists. Food was also scarce at the outset of the two-day first event at Takina, Wellington’s stylish new convention centre. But that was remedied on day two and there’s a lovely cafe on the ground floor of the impressive building.
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Tākina - Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre, Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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What can we afford, or not?
- Wellington Scoop
- Nero is alleged to have fiddled while Rome burned – a bit like the Wellington City Council, which is ploughing ahead with its biggest-ever programme of projects despite rising costs, rising debt, and lack of manpower. Rather different to the Government’s approach, which has acknowledged capacity constraints and scrapped or re-prioritised some major projects.
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No more please
- Wellington Scoop
- With the new $180m convention opening soon, it was startling to see that a city councillor says the city needs to have another new venue. Councillor Tamatha Paul (quoted at the end of a DomPost report about the loss of car parks) said she supported opening a medium-sized venue. “That’s going to fill the city, the hotels, the restaurants and the hearts of our city.” Which is of course the claim that was made to justify spending $180m on the convention centre.
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The honeymoon is over
- Wellington Scoop
- The newly-elected Wellington City Council is now two months old, which is more than enough time for a honeymoon. This Council gives me a really itchy feeling regarding transparency and its public relations capability. It feels like the wrong priorities are still being brought to the table.
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Getting rid of traffic
- Wellington Scoop
- Last week’s cautious city council move towards keeping traffic out of more of Cuba Street, and converting part of Dixon Street for pedestrians, should be welcomed by almost everyone, except for the few who still think that customers only arrive in cars. Councillors voted 11-3 to limit private vehicle access on Cuba Street between Ghuznee Street and Vivian Street, and on Dixon Street between Taranaki Street and Victoria Street.
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Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Tākina: costs, risks, and co-operation
- Wellington Scoop
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Tākina - Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre, Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The council isn’t selling shoes
- Wellington Scoop
- Cr Fleur Fitzsimons has had encouraging feedback from across the political spectrum since she criticised last week’s external review of the Wellington City Council’s communications and engagement functions. The review recommends a “refreshed corporate identity” for the council, but Cr Fitzsimons says this makes the council seem as if it is “a corporation with something to sell, like a sneakers brand or an insurance company.”
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Selling council housing is not the answer
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council made a peculiar decision last week, unanimously. In one resolution there was a good decision, and then a bad decision undermining the good decision. The good decision was that the Council supported advocacy to the Government for financial assistance for those most in need of rental relief through an income related rental subsidy (IRRS), available to state housing tenants, but denied to Council tenants. The bad decision was that it resolved to begin a process of getting rid of its exemplary award-winning Council housing and to start a distracting and entangled process of slowly but sur
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WCC and somebody else’s problem
- Wellington Scoop
- Douglas Adams wasn’t thinking of the Wellington City Council when he introduced the world to the SEP field. But he might well have been. In his book Life, The Universe, and Everything, he defined the SEP field: Somebody Else’s Problem.
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The mystery of $75m for the airport
- Wellington Scoop
- Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul was successful in leading the charge to remove $75 million for the Airport which had been in the council’s long term plan. For this, she and her colleagues have been lambasted by some – such as a letter to the Dominion Post by Nick Leggett a few days ago. But neither he nor the media appear to understand what this is all about.
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Wellington International Airport, Coutts Street, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6023, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Raising money, spatially
- Wellington Scoop
- Last week I attended another public meeting about the Draft Spatial Plan, this one organised by Inner City Wellington at St Peter’s on Willis Street. We heard speakers including our Mayor and Councillor Pannet. Through the murky fog of these last few months of public presentations, debates, zoom meetings, submissions, lobbying, etc, all is now crystal clear: It’s About The Money.
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What’s in a name?
- Wellington Scoop
- Last week’s announcement of Tākina as the new name for the new Conference Centre has brought a lively discussion about its relevance. It was also a reminder that renaming has become a habit in Wellington.
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Tākina - Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre, Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The law and the Library
- Wellington Scoop
- Our Central Library is hugely missed by so many of us, a place to go, to be, without cost or expectation, a place to learn, a place to find adventure in the pages of a good book, a place that added life to Te Ngakau Civic Square – the heart of our city. There is strong demand ‘to just reopen it.’ Problem is the Council cannot ‘just reopen it’.
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Wellington Central Library, Civic Square, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The rumours are true
- Wellington Scoop
- The rumours are true. For ages, people have been telling me that the city council has been talking to developers about privatising the Central Library building. Each time, I’ve responded with doubt. But this week the plan has become public – and Councillor Fitzsimons who heads the council’s library portfolio says the news has surprised her.
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Wellington Central Library, Civic Square, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The rain, the drains, the buses
- Wellington Scoop
- A week or so after 30 year, 50 year, 80 year, and 100 year rain events, no answers are forthcoming about why the city was shutdown because of a slip and a large puddle. Nor are any answers forthcoming on what the Wellington City Council in particular is going to do about the woeful state of its storm water. It’s a shambles and, in the middle of all of this, emergency management was really nowhere to be seen.
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Is Wellington for sale? Five council organisations into one private company
- Wellington Scoop
- It is my opinion that Kevin Lavery and some of the city council leadership team have an agenda for privatising and commercialising city assets that they are determined to push in an opaque and autocratic way. Let’s take a look at WREDA for example – the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency that was launched with great fanfare last year and has since disappeared off the radar. Its role is to replace five Council-Controlled Organisations: Grow, Positively, Destination, Venues, and Major Events.
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Making up for a million dollar loss
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council, after ten years, has decided to resume earning an income from the two billboards on top of the Embassy Theatre. When the city council took over ownership of the 1920s building from the Embassy Theatre Trust more than ten years ago, advertising deals were in place which earned $100,000 a year from the high-profile signage. But the council decided it didn’t want advertising. Except for itself. The commercial deals ended. As did the income.
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Embassy Theatre, Kent Terrace, Mt. Victoria, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand/Aotearoa
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Bikes and buses – big problem with fast-tracked $11m plan for Victoria Street
- Wellington Scoop
- Expensive new plans for Victoria Street have failed to consider cyclists. Why do the concept plans show that the street will be rubbish for people on bikes? The City Council has committed $11million to fast track a re-design of three blocks of the street, between Dixon and Abel Smith Streets.
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Victoria Street, Mt. Cook, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand/Aotearoa
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Don’t stop the cycleway
- Wellington Scoop
- At its meeting on Wednesday, the Wellington City Council will vote on a motion lodged by Councillors Nicola Young and Paul Eagle that could delay the development of the Island Bay Cycle Way (Section 1 of the full route to the city) indefinitely.
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Island Bay, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa (OpenStreetMap)
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