What do Aucklanders pay rates for?

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Batman

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#1301097 9-May-2015 10:26

if you want to make money, make the ministers/councillors co-directors of your company, and then get all the tenders to contract for the govt/council ... and bill them - i mean you and me - big time

nakedmolerat

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#1301104 9-May-2015 10:49

despite all the bad rap about auckland, i must give them credit for running the libraries (lots of great free programs), pools and well maintained parks throughout the region.

and yes.. these are part of the rates that you pay.

wsnz

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#1301143 9-May-2015 12:41

DarthKermit: It seems to me (yup, I'm a home owner and rate payer), that councils simply have no real incentive to contain their costs on rate payers and anyone else who has to use their services in the communities they're located in.

Well why should they contain their costs? They're monopolies and have us all by the balls.

There are a number of ways in which we can constrain their spending, which include:

Submissions on the LTCCP,
Voting for specific councillors at elections,
Membership to lobby groups,
Civil legal action (if you so desire)

In my experience, there are very few people who bother to make submissions on the LTCCP, which is not a difficult thing to do. Voting is by far the simplest, but quite often candidates will promise the earth then either change their mind once elected, realise that central government shifted a huge amount of responsibility onto local government, or will find local government can't turn on a dime like they expect.

driller2000

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#1301176 9-May-2015 15:12

short answer:

we pay for loads of stuff as every person does in a large city such as auckland

detailed answer to your question is located here:

http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/PLANSPOLICIESPROJECTS/PLANSSTRATEGIES/LONG_TERM_PLAN/Pages/documents.aspx

as others have said you can have your say on what they spend our rates on - most people however don't take enough notice - democracy in action eh?

as for those who complain about $100k salaries - having worked for council and as a consultant as a civil engineer / project manager - trust me - you don't want $50k plebs managing multi million (and billion) $ budgets / projects etc

simple fact of the matter is a council as large as auckland requires highly qualified, experienced and extremely capable people if it is to be run effectively given it is a complicated and multi billion $ enterprise - and to secure these people you have to pay market rates

driller2000

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#1301178 9-May-2015 15:17

joker97: if you want to make money, make the ministers/councillors co-directors of your company, and then get all the tenders to contract for the govt/council ... and bill them - i mean you and me - big time

bollocks

councillors have nothing to do with tender evaluation process - entirely done by council staff and done in accordance with detailed tender evaluation rules - either in-house or transfund, audit nz etc based

to do otherwise is fraud - as evidenced by the Auckland Transport Managers currently before the courts

driller2000

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#1301180 9-May-2015 15:23

surfisup1000:
MikeB4:
Are you saying that public buildings, roading and other infrastructure should not be built to meet the weather and seismic risks etc?

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying we are exceeding standards to the point of unaffordability. It is pointless applying the same earthquake construction standards to a building in auckland and christchurch, for example.

And of course buildings should be weatherproof -- that is a core standard (although tell that to the people with leaky homes). But, we have a lot of 'nice-to-have' standards which add to the cost such that some people cannot afford a house at all.

I wish people would not comment on stuff outside of their training / area of experience

eg. EQ design stds in AKL and ChCh are totally different, as set out in the nz loading codes

different risk - different requirements - geddit?

i would also appreciate some examples of these "nice to haves" please?

Batman

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#1301188 9-May-2015 15:27

driller2000:
joker97: if you want to make money, make the ministers/councillors co-directors of your company, and then get all the tenders to contract for the govt/council ... and bill them - i mean you and me - big time

bollocks

councillors have nothing to do with tender evaluation process - entirely done by council staff and done in accordance with detailed tender evaluation rules - either in-house or transfund, audit nz etc based

to do otherwise is fraud - as evidenced by the Auckland Transport Managers currently before the courts

you really think all the big shots know each other from facebook? fraud is when you're caught.

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driller2000

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#1301195 9-May-2015 16:03

joker97:
driller2000:
joker97: if you want to make money, make the ministers/councillors co-directors of your company, and then get all the tenders to contract for the govt/council ... and bill them - i mean you and me - big time

bollocks

councillors have nothing to do with tender evaluation process - entirely done by council staff and done in accordance with detailed tender evaluation rules - either in-house or transfund, audit nz etc based

to do otherwise is fraud - as evidenced by the Auckland Transport Managers currently before the courts

you really think all the big shots know each other from facebook? fraud is when you're caught.

sure they know each other - i will probably bump into some the next time I am at the northern club if that's the sort of place you are alluding to?

this is nz - with very low rates of corruption not some tinpot sh^thole

the fact we prosecute fraud is evidence of this - the fact that collins got sent to the backbenches for the possible sniff of corruption (and misleading her boss) is further evidence

for ten record I work in this space - have done for over 2 decades

and... what you said doesn't change a single word re the evaluation processes i commented on above - its done by the officers - not the councillors/ministers - yes they are involved in reviewing recommendations and ultimately signing them off - but you would have a damn difficult time overturning a recommendation without some pretty good and transparent reasons - and any hint of a COI would almost certainly see you removed from the process

furthermore audit nz is more and more involved in significant tender processes - again ensuring a sound process

so yeah - i would rate our tender processes as being pretty sound - and therefore continue to refute your comment

alexx

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#1301259 9-May-2015 19:33

Part of the increase for home owners is so that there can be a cut in business rates.

#include <standard.disclaimer>

surfisup1000

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#1301692 11-May-2015 08:40

driller2000:
surfisup1000:
MikeB4:
Are you saying that public buildings, roading and other infrastructure should not be built to meet the weather and seismic risks etc?

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying we are exceeding standards to the point of unaffordability. It is pointless applying the same earthquake construction standards to a building in auckland and christchurch, for example.

And of course buildings should be weatherproof -- that is a core standard (although tell that to the people with leaky homes). But, we have a lot of 'nice-to-have' standards which add to the cost such that some people cannot afford a house at all.

ffs - I wish people would not comment on stuff outside of their training / area of experience

eg. EQ design stds in AKL and ChCh are totally different, as set out in the nz loading codes

different risk - different requirements - geddit?

i would also appreciate some examples of these "nice to haves" please?

Why such an aggressive and expletive laden response?

Before today the government was requiring buildings in Auckland to reviewed to the same extent as those in christchurch, at massive expense.

Here you go....

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446452

One nice to have....double glazing. And over the top weatherproofing, knee jerk reaction to the leaky building crisis ( which was incidentally caused by so called building experts such as yourself ). Despite houses being built perfectly OK for the 100 years prior to the leaking building crisis.

old3eyes

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#1301716 11-May-2015 09:05

driller2000: short answer:

we pay for loads of stuff as every person does in a large city such as auckland

detailed answer to your question is located here:

http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/PLANSPOLICIESPROJECTS/PLANSSTRATEGIES/LONG_TERM_PLAN/Pages/documents.aspx

as others have said you can have your say on what they spend our rates on - most people however don't take enough notice - democracy in action eh?

as for those who complain about $100k salaries - having worked for council and as a consultant as a civil engineer / project manager - trust me - you don't want $50k plebs managing multi million (and billion) $ budgets / projects etc

simple fact of the matter is a council as large as auckland requires highly qualified, experienced and extremely capable people if it is to be run effectively given it is a complicated and multi billion $ enterprise - and to secure these people you have to pay market rates

You don't think for one minuter that these highly qualified people that you talk about are council employees?? They farm most of it out to contracting companies. Hell last year when my wife's church took the AKL Council to the high court due to them try to stop a building project that they had give resource consent for they use a high priced external law firm because their own lawyers told the council they haven't got a leg to stand on. Yes the council got waked about the head by the judge in a big way..

I see now that they want to spend another $10mil on new council chambers about a 5 minute walk from the existing ones.

Regards,

Old3eyes

StructureDr

77 posts

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#1301861 11-May-2015 11:44

surfisup1000:
driller2000:
surfisup1000:
MikeB4:
Are you saying that public buildings, roading and other infrastructure should not be built to meet the weather and seismic risks etc?

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying we are exceeding standards to the point of unaffordability. It is pointless applying the same earthquake construction standards to a building in auckland and christchurch, for example.

And of course buildings should be weatherproof -- that is a core standard (although tell that to the people with leaky homes). But, we have a lot of 'nice-to-have' standards which add to the cost such that some people cannot afford a house at all.

ffs - I wish people would not comment on stuff outside of their training / area of experience

eg. EQ design stds in AKL and ChCh are totally different, as set out in the nz loading codes

different risk - different requirements - geddit?

i would also appreciate some examples of these "nice to haves" please?

Why such an aggressive and expletive laden response?

Before today the government was requiring buildings in Auckland to reviewed to the same extent as those in christchurch, at massive expense.

Here you go....

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446452

One nice to have....double glazing. And over the top weatherproofing, knee jerk reaction to the leaky building crisis ( which was incidentally caused by so called building experts such as yourself ). Despite houses being built perfectly OK for the 100 years prior to the leaking building crisis.

Reviewed to the same extent does not equal same requirements for upgrade. Auckland earthquake design forces are ≈1/3 of Wellington, 40% of Christchurch.

To correct another often repeated myth, Christchurch was known to be at risk of earthquakes prior to the earthquakes. Pre-earthquake the risk was place roughly mid way between Auckland and Christchurch, and had been since the 70s.

More broadly, your statement that standards are too high is heading down a severely uneconomic road. We regularly look at 'modern' buildings where costs have been cut to the bone and the building should never have been consented. The cost to remedy the issues ALWAYS dramatically exceeds the cost that would have eventuated from doing it right the first time. Think of it like trying to retrofit seatbelts and airbags to an existing car.

A structural engineer

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