Developer contributions clarified

reporter Aaron Leaman is doing a great job of covering the introduction of Hamilton City Council’s Development Contributions.

However, the story ‘Hamilton developers say red tape, planning rules hindering growth of the city’ (November 14) labels ‘‘bureaucratic red tape’’ as adding $80,000 to the cost of building a house in Hamilton.

Most of that figure is not actually red tape at all but the council’s calculation of what development of a property costs the city’s ratepayers and residents through its future impact on infrastructure such as roading, water and wastewater.

That’s what a Development Contribution (DC) is. If the developer doesn’t pay that cost, the resident or the ratepayer does and for some time now residents have been subsidising developers.

In the story, developer Andrew Yeoman complains ‘‘we’ve got about 70 apartments we’re building in the CBD but with the removal of the DC remission policy, which means we’re going to have to pay full DCs, it means we’ll just to have to stop building apartments in the city.’’

What he is actually saying is that he wants residents to continue paying all the costs caused by his developments – not him. I think the city’s residents have had enough of subsidising developers.

Geoff Taylor

Deputy-chairman, Growth and Infrastructure Committee

Hamilton City Council