Absolutely, positively... struggling
Wellington, we love you, but the city is at a crossroads. Over the coming weeks The Post will be examining in detail why the capital has lagged behind other world class cities – and where the solutions lie. Today, to kick off, Julie Jacobson asks, how did
“‘Absolutely Positively Wellington’ obviously wasn’t about a positive city at all – it was about a city that felt the opposite...”
Former Wellington creative director
“I am worried the big picture is being lost ... there needs to be consideration of the wider picture of what we want Wellington to look like in 20 years time,”
Angela Foster, urban designer
Wellington. It’s a basket case. John Key’s 2013 critique of the capital as a city on its knees was nothing if not prescient. “All you have there is government, Victoria University and Weta Workshop,” he said at the time.
More than a decade on from the then PM’s infamous “Wellington is dying” line, the city, while perhaps not quite on its death bed, is definitely at crisis point.
For starters it has an infrastructure crisis, due in part to the damage caused by 2016’s Kaikōura earthquake, but also years of politically motivated neglect by successive mayors and councillors.
It has a fiscal crisis, and it has issues with housing stock and housing affordability. Hospitality is hurting.
Former mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast – whose decision to turn Manners Mall into a bus lane and bid to hold a V8 supercar race in the city were as controversial in their time as today’s cycleway roll out or heritage protection plans are – applies the “chickens coming home to roost” analogy.
“The problems go back years ... this is [about] a decade of underinvestment in an old city which suffered from a serious earthquake – Kaikōura – that went unnoticed underground.
“Wellington is a 120-plus year-old city. Its pipes are old, some are asbestos, clay and cast iron – the latter two certainly impacted by the earthquake.
“They need constant upgrades and delayed and changing depreciation rates have led to the [recent] constant failures.”
Which is why the council is now preparing to throw more than $1 billion at trying to fix its below-the-surface water infrastructure.
Above ground it’s about to hand $32 million to a global cinema chain to fund the earthquake repairs and upgrades it needs before it can reopen its Courtenay Place complex.
There’s the $147m cost blow-out for fixing the Town Hall, a project that now has an upper cost estimate of around $329m, and remedial work on the central library, which had an initial budget of $178.7m, but has since climbed to $201.1m.
Earlier this week Wellingtonians were told they would be facing between 10 to 15 years of buses replacing trains as Metlink worked on repairs and maintenance to its network. Public transport fares are also set to increase by 10%. Investment, of course, comes at a cost, and while savings of more than $360m have already been found, there continues to be a laser focus by council on finding money from any other source it can.
The investment into water infrastructure, for instance, potentially means a rates hikes of between 12 and 15%, on top of last year’s 12.3% – considerably higher than inflation.
As councillor Iona Pannett said recently, the council is not wealthy. While it holds billions in assets such as roads and parks, most of it can’t be sold.
“What we do have for potential sale is a 34% stake in Wellington Airport, worth $278m as at 2023. We also hold a ground leases portfolio of 63 leases, mainly in the central city, with a total asset value in 2021 of $234m. It is not a lot.”
Annabelle Moore left Wellington 15 years ago and now lives in Melbourne. She came “home” for Christmas, and was saddened by what she saw.
“It’s like time has stood still for almost two decades. The town centres feel devoid of life, there doesn’t seem to be much going on any more.
“I lived in the CBD in the ‘90s. It was such an awesome town and felt so special and unlike other places. I haven’t kept up with local politics, but I [was] so surprised that the city is basically the same city as two decades ago.
“Everything is so expensive at the supermarket. It’s just … bizarre. It’s like Wellington and the regions have just started disappearing ... at the same time hundreds of new tiny town houses have been built in Upper Hutt but no new facilities or services. It’s the opposite of what I see here in Melbourne.”
And that, Moore says, is investment – in capital letters. In the time she’s been in Melbourne money has been pumped into completely renewingallthewaterpipesintheareashelives in, “because water is a more precious resource here”, and public transport, including construction of twin underground rail tunnels, arts, and entertainment.
“It’s the stuff that creates jobs, liveability and economic improvements. In New Zealand everyone just talks about doing things...I love Wellington so much it makes me sad to see the glacial pace of change.”
While there has been some softening in house prices, Wellington rents are among the highest in the country. Three months ago Trade Me Property figures showed the average rent in the city was $630.
Latest figures, from December to January, show the average now sits at $680 per week, sharing the top spot with Auckland.
Similarly house prices, which dipped mid last year, were again tracking up.
Corelogic’s chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said Wellington’s housing market wasn’t “exactly cheap” to be buying in, but it was less expensive than two years ago, when the average house price in Wellington city was $1,256,674 compared to a national average of $1,006,765.
As of January the city’s average house price was a tad over a million, $1,009,818 compared to $925,460 nationally. Despite that Davidson said there was solid interest from first home buyers, but reduced interest from investors.
Developers, too, were cooling their heels as a new stoush over character protection and housing intensification ramped up, while insurance premiums are rising at a rate of knots in earthquake and flood-prone areas.
Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen, like Moore, believed a lack of perceived action was driving people’s frustration and “downbeat-ness”.
“The problem is that we’ve got a lot of issues, and they are well documented. Everyone's been screaming until they are blue in the face about the need to do more, do more, do more. And then the official report [the Long Term Plan] comes out that says, do less, do less ... “Whether it's housing, whether it's water, whether it’s transport, maybe it isn’t getting worse, but I don’t know if anyone is looking at things and feeling like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Olsen pointed out that although there hadn’t been big house price gains or rent increases recently, housing in Wellington was still “very unaffordable and very expensive relative to the quality, which is often damp, mouldy and run down”.
Although ratepayers would be paying close to $4000 each for the Town Hall restoration and would also be contributing to what many saw as “corporate welfare” for the refurbishment of Reading Cinemas, the issues of most concern seemingly received little attention, he said.
“How many people have been camped outside the Town Hall waiting to get back in? They haven’t, they’ve just made other arrangements.
“Joe Average is looking at the fact there’s water all over the place, the fact that it's going to take 10 to 15 years to move from bus replacements back to trains.”
On the other hand, some of the economic numbers were not “abysmal”, he said. “Spending is still solid enough, employment is not as strong, but again, it's also not negative yet, GDP growth was 1%. “No-one is denying that we have some great events and activities happening. But people are looking at that, and saying ‘I want that, but I also want the basics. At the moment I’m getting the shiny and not the basics’. You can’t paper over the cracks.”
And as if all that wasn’t enough Wellington also has something of an image crisis, a state of affairs many argue was always on the cards as the golden glow that imbued the city during the Lord of the Rings era began its inevitable fade.
As Key noted, a capital city is where a country or state’s government is located; it will frequently also be the country's business, cultural, and population centre.
Wellington definitely can’t claim the last, and increasingly it is being handed the mantle of poor cousin when it comes to economic – Key’s comment was a reflection on the exodus of “big, corporate offices” to Auckland – and cultural heft.
It still has Victoria University, albeit with considerably fewer staff and courses than it had 11 years ago, and Weta Workshop continues to appeal to the film tragics and tourists.
But the city can hardly be called cosmopolitan in the way of the bustling capitals of the rest of the world. “Wellington’s natural state is dull,” is the unflattering opinion of a former resident: “It is essentially a civil service town with an awful lot of equally uninspiring industries that hang off that.
“Some cities have a natural vibe and creative energy that is buried deep in the DNA and takes very little encouragement for it to pop to the surface.
“Wellington needs to work really hard at this ... when it does it embraces it and thrives, it’s just really hard to keep it there as it is not its natural state.”
Ouch, but then the latest residents’ satisfaction survey, which provides a portal into how the locals perceive their city, is similarly unkind.
In 2017 88% of participants agreed Wellington was “lively and attractive”. In 2022 less than half that number, 43%, thought it was.
There was a similar drop in enthusiasm when it came to feeling a sense of pride in the city, with 85% giving it the thumbs up in 2017 but only 59% in last year’s survey.
John Allen, chief executive of WellingtonNZ, the city’s development agency, and Chancellor of Victoria University, has lived in the city for 40 years, hence is only too aware of the challenges.
He notes, however, that some – inflation, cost of living pressures – were affecting countries worldwide and were not particular to Wellington or New Zealand.
The Kaikōura earthquake was a whole other story. It was, he says, a disaster for Wellington, and caused huge amounts of damage, the consequences of which were still being felt today.
That plus Covid had culminated in a perfect storm for the capital, Allen said. The CBD, “which is the lifeblood of the city” emptied out and there were dramatic changes to the physical landscape.
Unlike Christchurch, where central government stepped in to help out, Wellington was left to pick up its own pieces.
A lack of understanding of new earthquake regulations following the quake was an added complication; the city has 556 earthquake-prone buildings that need strengthening or other remedial work.
Fixing the infrastructure challenges required government intervention, Allen said. “We have to reset our relationship with central government. And we have to be able to persuade central government that they need to co-invest with us, but invest with us systematically in the long term to address the issues of Kaikōura.”
On top of that, Allen believed people had become more polarised, and were less willing to make compromises.
“The city has always been a place of activism, of politics, of opinion, all of that. And I think that's part of what makes it an exciting and interesting place to live.
“But equally it’s also been a place where, notwithstanding different political views and different perspectives, we’ve been able to talk to each other and engage with each other, and do that respectfully and largely, with compromise. I think we’re losing that.”
The fundamentals that made Wellington a great place to live – the harbour, the hills, its walkability, its energy, the arts – and he lists the various events on in the city at the moment, still existed, but “it’s just people are finding it hard”.
“I think we all have to recognise that we have a role to play. And it’s not just our civic leaders. It’s not just central government. It’s not just business leaders. It’s not just community leaders. All of us have a role in this, and all of us have to put aside some of the tribalism and engage for the benefit of the city.”
The crises list is long.
People obviously want action, and the council recognises it. Its new Positively Pōneke billboards erected in Civic Square –the city’s could-be vibrant central hub – tell us our elected officials are “getting s..t sorted”.
They feature the Absolutely Positively Wellington mantra, and photographs of people enjoying various aspects of Wellington life and were apparently a response to this paper’s “grumpy” “negative” reporting.
Which is somewhat ironic, according to a former Wellington creative director, who was involved with the original APW campaign. He claims the slogan was developed not for the council of the time, but for a newspaper promotion to try and turn negative perceptions of the city around.
“‘Absolutely Positively Wellington’ obviously wasn’t about a positive city at all – it was about a city that felt the opposite...”
Prendergast is all for the city getting its positivity back – “we need Wellingtonians to believe in themselves and our stunning city” – but knows it’s going to be a long road.
“Covid sent our government workers home and most government departments have not mandated their return so hospitality and retail especially at the Government end of town have suffered.”
Talk of job cuts and contractor lay-offs added to the nervousness, as did uncertainty about what was happening with Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which had resulted in an unsure future for retailers, restaurants and other businesses.
All of that added to the tiredness and rundown nature of some parts of the city, she said.
Architect and urban designer Angela Foster believes Wellington needs a cohesive vision and some brave decisions to bring back its “spark”.
“I am worried the big picture is being lost with the piecemeal approach ... there needs to be consideration of the wider picture of what we want Wellington to look like in 20 years time.”
She said gentrification of Courtenay Pl would not be successful until some fundamentals were addressed, such as its blanket heritage status and agreement from building owners and council’s planning team as to future development.
“The ground floor shop fronts are tatty and occupied by marginal tenancies, [but] underinvestment will continue until we have a more progressive approach to heritage and only then will any public area upgrades be successful.”
She suggested a more people-friendly city could include turning the quays into the main vehicle and bus route (with four lanes for cars and two for buses with frequent stops), over which a New York-style “Highline” pedestrian zone could be built above in future.
Alongside that, dedicated parking facilities at key entry points into the city and a minibus circular loop service from Kent Terrace, through to The Terrace to the Railway Station, would free up the city’s heart for pedestrians and cyclists.
And as for John Key, and those comments? He told The Post this week he made them in relation to the stampede of corporate head offices to Auckland.
“I know at the time it hurt, but it’s true. All the banks, the likes of Fonterra, and the oil companies, all saw greener pastures in Auckland.
“I am the first to admit that Wellington has done well with the likes of arts and culture but it needs more than film, politicians and civil servants,” he said.
“To quote me in the Phil Goff Christchurch [election] debate: … ‘show me the money’.
“Wellington has to become attractive to corporates, it has to play up its connection to the political power base, emphasise its good points, and its council has to become more user friendly. “It’s not easy, but I’m sure more can be done.”
– What do you think? Email editor@thepost. co.nz.