Latest / Best of Business / Ian Cassels: Director of The Wellington Company on the impact of increased rates on businesses

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Ian Cassels: Director of The Wellington Company on the impact of increased rates on businesses · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio Wellington.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's always trouble in Wellington, isn't it? And this time
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: there are fears that businesses are being driven out of
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Wellington over high rates. The average commercial rates bill in
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: the capitol has reached forty eight thousand dollars a year now.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: That's almost double what it is in Auckland and Auckland
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: it's about twenty seven it's actually twenty seven thousand dollars
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: more than Auckland.
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  Speaker 3: Rather.
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  Speaker 2: Ian Castle's is the director of the Wellington Company, which
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  Speaker 2: is one of the city's largest commercial property developers. Who's
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: with us now, hey En.
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  Speaker 3: Good evening, Keva, how are you.
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you. So how do you feel
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  Speaker 2: about this? This can't be making it easy to do
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  Speaker 2: business in Wellington at all now.
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  Speaker 3: It's an ongoing story. Really, It's like I was speaking
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  Speaker 3: to someone before. If you keep on getting money out
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: of the cash machine and it's broken, then you just
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  Speaker 3: keep you keep on going back. So that's why it's
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  Speaker 3: been for one commercial owners for years now.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So the problem seems so is the problem as simple
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  Speaker 2: as this, that the commercial guys are bearing are basically
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  Speaker 2: carrying a disproportioned amount of the rating burden, and then
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  Speaker 2: the residential guys are paying less than they should.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if that's right. I think there's definitely
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  Speaker 3: a lot of over spending going on. The best way
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  Speaker 3: to look at it really is that we're an exactly
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  Speaker 3: similar building. Commercial pays maybe five times more than residential
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: because there's a lot of other fees and levees attached
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  Speaker 3: to the commercial rate apart from the three point seven
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  Speaker 3: times differential, which is downtown levy, sewage and targeted water
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  Speaker 3: rates and in the transport levy at the regional council
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  Speaker 3: levees which is eye watering. So you've got to pay
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: to bring people into town when they're working from home,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: and you've got to give them parties when they don't exist.
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  Speaker 3: So all of that falls upon some pull baskets with
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  Speaker 3: an empty building.
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  Speaker 2: So are you saying it's not just the differential. It's
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  Speaker 2: the differential, but then it's also all the levees that
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  Speaker 2: are added on top of that.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it's like a big it's a big taking machine.
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  Speaker 3: Like it's just and then when they talk about Wellington
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  Speaker 3: being forty eight percent of the Warington businesspout percent of
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  Speaker 3: the city's rates. The city is all the suburbs and
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  Speaker 3: all the pipes and a whole lot of things, Like
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  Speaker 3: the city itself doesn't cost anything like the rates that
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: are levied upon the city's buildings. It's seen as the
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  Speaker 3: great provider, and you know, in the past it may
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: will have been, but it just can't keep on doing that.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: They can't pay. I mean, some b and seafat buildings
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  Speaker 3: they're paying half of their income and insurance and rates,
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  Speaker 3: and the ones that's having been the income as all
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  Speaker 3: their number is just paying a whopping great pot of
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: money for the privilege of having an empty building in Wellington.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What's the fix is? I mean the obvious what some
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  Speaker 2: people will say to you is the fix is that
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: residential has to carry a bigger burden and commercial less.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Is that the fix or is it actually just to
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  Speaker 2: trim the council spending right back?
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  Speaker 3: You know, you've got to spend according to what you can.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you've got to do the best you can
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  Speaker 3: with what you've got, and really you can't keep on
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  Speaker 3: spending at the rate that we are. And this is.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Obvious to voters because you people keep on electing real
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: weirdos and apparently Ian, I've heard that the next lot
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: coming in, according to the numbers, are even worse than
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  Speaker 2: the current lot.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: That's a strange thing to hear. Well, I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we can't comment on that right now until
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  Speaker 3: after the elections.
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  Speaker 2: But I mean, how is this is what I'm hearing?
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  Speaker 2: And it's not as if you've had one or two
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  Speaker 2: council elections where you've had weirdos elected like this is
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  Speaker 2: an ongoing problem with Wellington. Why don't rate payers realize
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  Speaker 2: that there's too much spending going on?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think some of them do. I mean, I
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  Speaker 3: guess the problem is there's a lot of transient voters
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: that come to town, isn't there. I mean they come
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  Speaker 3: and vote, students lived here for the six months or
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: a year or something and they're all voting. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't directly affect them. I mean, it affects the
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: people that are left holding the baby.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But listen, the big story here is the council actually
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  Speaker 3: agreed that the after two court after lost two court
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  Speaker 3: cases and then one one, it won one because the
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  Speaker 3: court didn't want to over the interfere with a democratically
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  Speaker 3: arrived that decision if unless it was totally unreasonable. So
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  Speaker 3: they've got got very close to doing that because it
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  Speaker 3: was was unreasonable, but they didn't think it was totally unreasable,
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  Speaker 3: and they agreed with the finding of the first two cases.
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  Speaker 3: But the fact of the matter is the council got
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  Speaker 3: out of that by agreeing with the rate players to
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  Speaker 3: limit it to two point eight times. Now, this, this
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  Speaker 3: council and councils before it had just gleefully gone against
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  Speaker 3: that eel. So what's what's her commercial entity? What's what's
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  Speaker 3: your entity? What's your council? If it cannot keep its word?
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  Speaker 2: Well quite, David Ian, good luck with it because it
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  Speaker 2: sounds to me like you're going to need it. That's
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  Speaker 2: Ian Ian Castle's director of the Wellington Company.
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