Arthur
The Style Council was a band formed in 1982 by ex-The Jam member Paul Weller. This is not about them. It is about the Wellington City Council more concerned with virtue signalling style and green ideology than doing its core job, which is infrastructure and running the city so its citizens can do what they have to do. This includes water, sewerage, libraries, swimming pools, streets, lighting etc. The elected Councillors are there to serve the ratepayers, not the UN and its agendas, woke fashion, social engineering, green ideology and pandering to minority activist groups.
The WCC has been well and truly hijacked by idealistic green activist fantasists. This started years ago when Celia Wade-Brown became Mayor with her cabal of green Councillors and continued under her protégé, Justin Lester.
Last election it seemed as if a worrying majority of the Council hopefuls were idealistic idiots poisoned with green ideology and academic nonsense. Then there was the usual range of fringe dwelling nutters and extremists. It was so bad I could not vote for any of them, just a mayoral candidate. This was Andy Foster, not because I liked him as a candidate or for his long Council record, but because he was the best of some very bad choices. Likely the bad state of this Council is worsened by poor voter engagement, with Green activists being the most motivated to grab control by ensuring they vote.
So what are the problems with the WCC? Here are a few.
Rates are exorbitant for little real return.
Wellington rates are higher than Auckland yet we get less. Aucklanders may find that astounding, but hey, the WCC is really good at fleecing ratepayers. This is a Council in debt yet profligate spending on frills and vanity projects is all go including a convention centre that was never needed and likely will be under-utilised in a COVID world. They are seemingly in denial about a COVID recession. They have money to burn and ratepayers to supply more of it. Ratepayers will become property owner refugees as more and more (especially those on fixed incomes) cannot afford to pay rates on their properties. A massive rates hike has been mooted.
Social engineering and pandering to ideological minorities.
The WCC pushes through cycle-ways that narrow Wellington’s already narrow streets and ruin the few good ones, all for a few hundred cycling lobby fanatics, well off middle-class elites and simpering posing greenies. New builds do not need off-street parking as part of the Council’s stated “encouragement to not own cars”, which is weasel speak for discouragement by its smug Green Councillor know-it-alls. There is no empirical evidence for this anti-car view and people wanting to buy into it; just green ideology. There are only a few sane voices on this, namely Dianne Calvert as one. This is a Council that has been promoting EVs for years but now will not ensure that there is off-street parking for them in areas jammed with residents’ cars. There is a risk that these will become future ghettos like many British housing estates as families move out to areas with parking for the family car.
Intensification plans.
They have plans to build multi-storey apartment blocks in selected areas to cater to some nebulous and unproven population explosion. Strangely this destruction of traditional housing is mooted only in areas that are more working class and lack ‘influential people’ that might be annoyed and fight it and have no Councillors living there. One area is Lyall Bay-Kilbirnie where for years residents have been warned by the WCC panic merchants of flooding from rising sea levels and tsunamis. At least one insurance company won’t take new customers from Wellington in general, and others have more than doubled premiums, especially in this area. Perversely most parts of the area selected for intensification are the most prone to flooding and disappearance with supposed sea level rise, being around 2M above sea level. Ditto with the controversial Shelley Bay fiasco. Their selective contradictory actions and hypocrisy are at odds with reality, and the convenient decision making of the moment is galling. They are in effect proposing creating a future housing disaster with dwellings possibly uninsurable in the future.
Nature.
They have proposed a predator-free Miramar peninsula and an encouragement of native species. One Green Councillor once waxed lyrical about Kiwis running through back yards as if a shy nocturnal bird would be anywhere near a noisy suburb! Yet they consent a major build in Shelley Bay, in a nesting area for Little Blue Penguins. Go figure!
I’m sure this story is familiar around the country. Feel free to share your tales of Council woe.
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