Nick Mills: It is becoming impossible to afford Wellington

OPINION: This is the moments where the penny really drops.   Because for years, we’ve talked about infrastructure, we’ve talked about pipes, we’ve talked about underinvestment — but now it’s no longer theory.   It’s turning up in your email or letterbox.   In a matter of months — July 1 — Wellington households will start receiving a separate water bill.   Not buried in your rates anymore, not hidden in the background. Front and centre and the numbers are eye watering.  Right now, the average household is effectively paying about $2100 a year for water through rates.   Under the new model, that becomes a standalone charge of roughly $2410 a year — about $200 a month, $50 a week and that’s the starting point.  But here’s the reality check — and this is the bit people need to really hear.  That number is projected to rise significantly. The modelling shows annual increases of between 8.9% and 14.4% through to 2035.   If you compound that — and let’s just be clear how that works — you’re stacking increases on top of increases every single year — that $2100 becomes around $6831 a year within a decade.  That’s $566 a month, over $130 a week.  Now put that on top of everything else.  Rates are still going up.   Wellington City Council is already signalling another 7.4% increase.  Even with a projected reduction when water is split out — roughly 29% off the rates bill initially — once the increases are added back in, the average homeowner ends up worse off by about $1000 a year overall, $20 a week.  So let’s be very clear about this: you are not saving money. You are paying more for the same house, in the same city.  And this is where my concern sits.  Because I was talking to a very successful property developer yesterday — someone who knows the numbers inside out — and his words were simple: it’s becoming untenable to live and do business in Wellington.  And now you can see why.  You’ve got rising rates. You’ve now got a separate water bill that could hit $6,000–$7,000 a year within a decade.   You’ve got a shrinking population - an estimated increase of 800 over ten years - to spread those costs across.   And at the same time, we’re being told this is all because of decades of underinvestment in infrastructure — which, frankly, just pushes the cost straight onto today’s ratepayers.  Yes, of course we need to fix the pipes. No one’s arguing that.  But the system? The way this is being delivered? The compounding cost?  That’s where people are starting to say — hang on — this is becoming unaffordable. At what point does the cost of living in Wellington simply become too much?  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.