Rates rise on cards

The Rugby World Cup will be costing ratepayers. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Aucklanders face a rates rise of nearly four per cent under their new Supercity structure for the next financial year.

But if it wasn't for the cost of the Supercity and Rugby World Cup, there may not have been a rates increase at all.

A report released by the Auckland Transition Agency, the organisation in charge of setting up the Supercity, has forecast rates will rise by 3.9 per cent for the 2011/12 year.

Although this is less than the six per cent increase forecast, the report said rates were pushed up by Supercity transition costs, funding the mayoral office and local boards as well as the Rugby World Cup.

"The latter item is estimated by the ATA to have increased rates by some 2 per cent in 2011/12," said the report, prepared by economic advisory firm Taylor Duignan Barry.

Without the Cup and temporary transition costs, the rates rise in 2011/12 could have been close to zero, assuming $47 million of unspecified saving was achieved, the report says..

Titirangi ratepayer Melanie Gordon said the rates rise was "a bit harsh".

"I think it stinks really. Our rates seem to go up year after year.

"We don't have footpaths. There's no bus service. There are no street lights. These are the things that I get annoyed about."

She is not a rugby fan but her husband Richard will benefit from Cup tourists. He owns a workshop specialising in camper van repairs.

"It's pretty exciting for New Zealand - my husband thinks it's a good thing."

The couple pays about $156 a month in rates which would rise to about $162 a month with a four per cent rise.

"The budget is already stretched pretty tight with the kids at primary school age and with a new business."

Auckland mayor-elect Len Brown said the four per cent hike was below the six per cent predicted by previous councils

"It's a good starting place. Clearly that's a figure that the ATA has arrived at.

"A lot of that is to do with the preparation work round Eden Park and work looking at making sure that the Rugby World Cup is an outstanding success."

Brown said over the next few months he would bring his own analysis to the figures and would draw his own conclusions.

Will he be able to keep rate rises within four per cent?

"I'm hopeful rather than confident," said Brown.

Local Government minister Rodney Hide was "very pleased" the forecasted rates rise was below four per cent.

"We've kept all the projects of councils in so no projects have been cut, yet the rate rise forecast for Auckland was six per cent, so the re-organisation has knocked two per cent off that rise."

However, he added: "if you take out the Rugby World Cup expenditure there would be a decrease."