Just $500k paid from $12m fund
Only $500,000 out of a $12 million hardship fund has been paid out to businesses struggling because of Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) construction project.
The fund was announced in September after media highlighted the plight of nearby businesses as construction noise, dust, and disruption drove shoppers and diners away.
As of the end of January, 118 applications had been received under an interim payment scheme and the full Targeted Hardship Fund, which was launched in October. To date, 51 applications had been approved, with $499,149 being paid out. The highest amount was $39,258 and the smallest $1501.
Roma Blooms flower shop owner Shobhaa Ranchhodji said 25 of the 40 businesses in the City Rail Link C3 contract area had not applied yet because shop owners wanted two changes made to the scheme: backdating payments to February 2019 and having assurance from the Government that they would continue to be looked after until the project was finished in 2024, she said.
‘‘We’re asking for something very little because many of the businesses ... came in here before the project started.’’
Ranchhodji said the Government wouldn’t budge on the February 2021 date for back payments.
On Friday last week, CRL chief executive Sean Sweeney told Parliament’s Transport Select Committee the organisation was doing the ‘‘best it could’’ to encourage people to apply. ‘‘The payments are without prejudice and don’t foreclose their rights on anything in the future or to make a claim they see fit,’’ Sweeney said.
‘‘We are making it clear that a fund has been set up to pay them. Our aim is to follow the guidelines we have been given and pay out.’’
Because the payments were much larger under the full scheme than the interim, CRL required significantly more information from applicants, he said.
A total of 43 applications had been declined because they did not meet the eligibility criteria, Sweeney said. The main reasons were that a business did not fall within the ‘‘affected area,’’ started up in the area after works started, or there was a lack of evidence of financial hardship, he said.
‘‘The scheme ... was not set up for inconvenience, disturbance or noise. It is for genuine financial hardship.’’
To qualify for the fund, a business needed to be ‘‘immediately adjacent’’ to the construction, have suffered legitimate financial hardship, and started in the affected area before October 2019.
In December, Heart of the City called for an independent review of the fund because business owners were disillusioned by the scheme not delivering for them.
Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck said things were getting desperate: ‘‘Rhey need this money. They are really hoping that the Government and Auckland Council will take a fair approach here and be prepared to review those decisions.’’