150-day plan of promises long overdue

Wellington mayor Andy Foster insists a pile of expired election pledges have not been forgotten.

More than seven months on from Foster’s mayoral victory on the back of his promise to ‘‘get things done’’, his unchecked list of pre-election pledges paints a starkly different picture.

Among the promises were expediting an extra Mt Victoria tunnel, putting an end to the Shelly Bay redevelopment controversy, restoring free Sunday parking, finalising a reopening plan for the earthquake-stricken central library, and releasing a blueprint to revamp the tired Civic Square precinct.

The promises were among more than 30 check boxes included in Foster’s 150-day plan before the election, most of which have still not been met.

And, of the major ones, Foster admitted only the library and Civic Square proposals could be fully blamed on the disruption caused by Covid-19.

The rest, which have all missed Foster’s self-imposed March 31 deadline, were due to other underlying factors.

‘‘It’s been a very challenging, and many times very publicly challenging, start,’’ Foster said. ‘‘I had an electoral challenge [from ousted mayor Justin Lester], then we had water infrastructure issues, and then a global pandemic.

‘‘I haven’t done some of the things I had planned to do, and I’ve done many things I had no intention of doing.’’

Among the latter were putting together a pandemic response plan, and setting up a mayoral taskforce to look into Wellington’s water woes. But Foster admitted some of his pledges – notably upending the Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) programme and resolving the long-running Shelly Bay dispute – were never on track to be achieved by the end of March.

Free Sunday parking did not make it into the council’s draft annual plan, and other projects such as a proposed housing development in Happy Valley were only due to be discussed last month.

In November, Foster met with Transport Minister Phil Twyford in a bid to bring forward construction of the extra Mt Victoria tunnel, which is scheduled to be completed after 2029.

Twyford agreed to at least keep an open mind about the project’s timeline, but reiterated a mass transit system was the priority of the $6.4 billion LGWM programme. Foster promised that plan would be renegotiated as part of a ‘‘new deal’’ for transport, along with fast-tracking a new road bypassing

the Basin Reserve. When pressed on why that had not happened, Foster said: ‘‘We are accelerating a whole range of elements of the LGWM programme.

‘‘Ultimately that will be part of a new deal.’’ One of those elements was releasing a proposed central city safer speeds package sooner than planned, Foster said.

The legal stoush over the $500 million Shelly Bay redevelopment shows no signs of letting up, with a group of Miramar businesses going to the Ombudsman over concerns about the council’s lack of transparency in granting resource consent. Foster and most councillors are against the proposal, but developer Ian Cassels plans to push on with it.

Foster said there would have been information by the end of March had it not been for coronavirus. He would not elaborate, but conceded it did not mean a deal would have been struck.

Plans for the Civic Square redevelopment and central library were due to be tabled on March 25 but were put back because of coronavirus, Foster said. An announcement was expected next Friday.

A number of proposals, such as the Happy Valley housing development and public feedback on the city-shaping spatial plan, were due to be discussed as part of the Planning for Growth package, which had been delayed.

Internal problems had not helped, with Foster battling councillor factions.

Some things have been ticked off his list, including reducing the forecast 2020-21 rates rise, and agreeing on plans for more priority bus lanes and council funding for the first two years of the LGWM programme.

‘‘I haven’t done some of the things I had planned to do, and I’ve done many things I had no intention of doing.’’ Mayor Andy Foster