Roche Denise: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18499. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): Councils are basically in the business of planning for the future planning for their populations and the development contributions policy that a council has is a crucial part of that planning. The idea is that development contributions through a levy on developers who are extending housing opportunities across territorial authorities will pay towards the new infrastructure that is needed to create communities and create housing. What development contributions do is create the assets that communities need to make a community. Those assets include things like libraries swimming pools recreational facilities and sports fields. We have a grave concern that this legislation the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) sets out restrictions on that.In the next 10 years the Auckland Council estimates that there will be 270000 extra people living in Auckland and the council needs to be planning for them. The council also expects to take around $2.1 billion in development fees. The development contributions policy that Auckland Council has in place at the moment has taken years to get to. We had to standardise across the eight previous legacy councils which all had different development contributions policies. So it has taken years of negotiation to find a pathway that met both the developers’ needs and the greater needs of the Auckland Council as well but we have achieved that in Auckland. In Auckland there is a vision that the council has which is to create the world’s most liveable city. We cannot do that unless we have participation from those who are developing the housing as well and that includes the development contributions fees.We have heard from previous speakers what it would cost homebuyers. It is without doubt that the cost of the development contributions is passed on to those who buy the houses that are developed but the cost of that is on average about $750 per housewhich in the scale of things is not that much. But when you consider that if you removed development contributions fees in Auckland the ratepayers would have to bear the cost of the infrastructure that needs to be put in place in order for those houses to be created in the first place it is not fair that ratepayers should have to pay for that when the new ratepayers should play their part as well.Without development contributions in Auckland the cost of that to ratepayers would be an increase of about 8.5 percent in the rates. At the moment the Auckland Council is still trying to standardise rates across the eight previous legacy council areas and what that means is that in some areas rates increases at the moment are at around 10 percent. That is incredibly difficult for people who are on fixed incomes in the community where I live Waiheke Island. They are facing rates increases of around 6 percent and upwards at the moment. So if we were to take development contributions away from councils and look at putting an 8.5 percent increase on top of that we are getting into a situation where it will become unaffordable for people to own their own homes or to stay in their own homes in the areas where they want to live.I have to say that this Government is probably the first to criticise councils for rates increases. Rates increases and the cost of rates have been used time and time again in this House in previous legislation as a reason for taking away some of the role that councils play. I think it would be irresponsible of this Government to put in place legislation that increases the costs to councils which they then have to pass on to ratepayers. In this legislation there are also the costs around the fact that developers can oppose the contributions policy that the councils—