![\"Wellington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQJBAV_28PSTrates09_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nWellington City’s residential rates have more than doubled since 2012, according to a report.
\nPhoto: LDR\/SUPPLIED\n<\/p>\n
Wellington City’s residential rates have more than doubled since 2012, making them among the highest and least affordable in the country, a new council-commissioned report says.<\/p>\n
Including the levy for the new $511 million Moa Point sludge-minimisation plant,<\/a> median Wellington City residential rates soared from $1985 in 2012 to $5177 last year – far outpacing the 56 percent rise in median household wages over the same period, according to an Infometrics rates-affordability report<\/a> commissioned for the council’s next long-term plan.<\/p>\n The report shows residential rates made up 2.2 percent of Wellington City household incomes in 2012, rising to 3.8 percent by 2025.<\/p>\n Once regional council rates are included, Wellington City households spend 4.7 percent of median incomes on rates – tying with Porirua as the second least affordable in the country, just behind Tauranga and Dunedin at 4.8 percent.<\/p>\n The Government’s 2007 independent inquiry into local government rates set an affordability benchmark at 5 percent, with rates deemed unaffordable once they exceed that share of household income.<\/p>\n Infometrics chief executive and principal economist Brad Olsen told councillors at a Tuesday briefing that the report looked only at superficial dollar figures, without factoring in council services or value for money.<\/p>\n The council’s recently-adopted triennium plan had pledged to “strive to keeping rates as low as practicable in an effort to make Wellington more affordable, while acknowledging there will always be a range of views about what that means”.<\/p>\n Mayor Andrew Little said the council had a responsibility to control costs, raise revenue where possible and keep rates increases as low as practical.<\/p>\n “Wellingtonians have given the council a clear message that rates affordability is a major concern, and I’m determined to respond to that.”<\/p>\n Across the capital, rates affordability worsened in every suburb, the Infometrics report found, with rates rising from 1.8-3 percent of household incomes in 2012, to 1.9-3.5 percent in 2017, and up to 2.3-5.2 percent by 2025.<\/p>\n In Oriental Bay – which has held the unenviable title of Wellington’s least affordable suburb for rates since 2012 – the share of household income going to rates has climbed from 5.2 percent to 7.5 percent over 13 years.<\/p>\n In Berhampore and Mount Victoria, rates made up 2.8 percent and 3 percent of household incomes in 2012, but have climbed to 5.2 percent by 2025 – making them jointly the second-least affordable suburbs for rates.<\/p>\n The Infometrics report also found Wellington’s median commercial rates – $13,000, putting the city in the national “middle of the pack” – become the most unaffordable once measured as a share of capital value, at 2.4%. By comparison, commercial rates in Auckland and Christchurch sit at 0.9 percent of capital value, making them the most affordable.<\/p>\n Little had earlier pledged to reduce the capital’s commercial rate differential, which currently charges commercial building owners 3.7 times more than residential ratepayers.<\/p>\n His triennium plan also included lobbying to axe a law that exempted Crown buildings such as Parliament, schools and hospitals from paying rates.<\/p>\n LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wellington City’s residential rates have more than doubled since 2012, according to a report. Photo: LDR\/SUPPLIED Wellington City’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-367463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n