Mayor says wheelie bin rethink is possible

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Pressure is mounting on Auckland City councillors to budge on the rubbish policy and give every home and business a red-top wheelie bin.

Auckland Mayor Christine Fletcher said last night that it was possible to change the policy that is forcing thousands of flat-dwellers, for example, who want their own bins to pay an annual fee of $185.

Councillors voted 15-5 nearly two weeks ago to give every rateable property one bin.

That has meant multiple properties with just one rate demand, such as blocks of flats, have received just one red-top.

The policy has outraged tenants, landlords and businesses, who are forced to pay extra to the council or a private contractor to take away their rubbish.

Mrs Fletcher, a staunch supporter of giving one bin to every household and business, said that if most councillors wanted to review the policy she would bring it back to the council.

Otherwise, angry residents would have to wait three months until the council works committee reviewed the changeover to smaller bins.

Councillor Jan Welch, who voted for the present policy, said it should come back to the council and another councillor, Faye Storer, said she would have second thoughts if she knew that multiple-unit properties paid the same in rates per unit as single-title properties.

Council finance director David Rankin said four properties on one title paid about the same in rates as four similar properties on individual titles in the same street.

Councillor Bill Christian, who has taken over the public relations role on rubbish while works committee chairman Doug Astley is overseas, said the policy of allocating bins had been reviewed once and it could not be reviewed for three months.

Jon Olsen, the councillor who tried to introduce the one-household, one-bin rule two weeks ago, said it was a core responsibility of the council to remove rubbish and it was unfair to use a quirk in the rating system to discriminate against residents.

His policy would have required the distribution of between 13,800 and 19,000 extrabins at a cost of between $2.1 million and $3 million.

"We are hurting those people we are not supposed to hurt," said Mr Olsen, "someone living in a small brick-and-tile block of flats for whom $185 is a lot of money."

George and Martha Nielsen are in exactly that predicament with a block of four flats they rent to low-income earners on Mt Wellington Highway.

They pay the council $2500 a year in rates for the privilege of one wheelie bin and would have to pay another $555 for an extra three.

Mr Nielsen said he and his wife could not pass on the cost to their tenants, who are mostly in an income bracket that just denies them welfare.

He said that after paying the mortgage, rates and wastewater charges he and his wife made only a small profit from the flats for their retirement income.

"We don't want a handout," said Mr Nielsen. "We just want what's fair. What irks me is that we are being asked to pay again for something we have already paid."

Roy Bicknell, who runs a homebrew business in Harris Rd, Mt Wellington, said councillors were insane if they thought he and three other businesses on one rates title and a block of six flats next door would cope with just one small wheelie bin for each property.