{"id":428047,"date":"2026-05-14T23:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428047\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:13:09","slug":"wealthy-auckland-cbd-landlords-mobilise-against-heart-of-the-city-board-after-chief-executive-viv-becks-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428047\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealthy Auckland CBD landlords \u2018mobilise\u2019 against Heart of the City board after chief executive Viv Beck\u2019s suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another HOTC member pushing for the special general meeting is Greg Moyle \u2013 the Waitemat\u0101 local board member who Beck had campaigned unsuccessfully to keep as the council liaison person overseeing HOTC funding decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moyle is also a business owner in the CBD and thus eligible for HOTC membership.<\/p>\n

Moyle said he\u2019s \u201ccertainly prepared to go out and try and get [the signatures off HOTC members] to force that issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real worry that our largest business association is in this sort of turmoil, and I don\u2019t understand the reason why,\u201d Moyle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to me to be a bit of a witch hunt against Viv \u2026 I don\u2019t like bullies, and she\u2019s been treated totally inappropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are 15,000 businesses and commercial property owners within the HOTC boundary that pay a targeted rate, which generates slightly more than $5 million in annual budget.<\/p>\n

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wrote to HOTC in March with concerns about the agency\u2019s governance.<\/p>\n

The city centre business association then agreed to launch a governance review, engaged lawyers and ramped up its \u201cfinancial oversight\u201d.<\/p>\n

The owner of St James Theatre on Queen St, Steve Beliby, has acted as a spokesman for a group of disgruntled HOTC members, who have been meeting over concerns with the new HOTC board\u2019s agenda \u2013 even before Beck was stood down. <\/p>\n

Last week, the Herald revealed that new HOTC chair Malcolm McCracken was elected in February despite Beck allegedly ringing several members of the nine-member board to convince them to vote for another member of the board as chair. Five of the board\u2019s nine members were replaced at the association\u2019s AGM in October.<\/p>\n

Beilby says he asked HOTC to confirm that all the members of its board were eligible for their roles. Board members need to be HOTC members, for which they must be business owners or commercially rated property owners in the HOTC targeted rate boundary.<\/p>\n

Beilby said HOTC needs to \u201cclarify the status of the board\u201d and whether all members are \u201ccurrently in line with the [HOTC] constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moyle echoed this sentiment, claiming several board members needed \u201cto fall on their sword\u201d because they were not business owners, thus not entitled to be there. <\/p>\n

A special general meeting can be triggered after 5% of the HOTC full members request it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely members mobilising. There is a frustration and a concern this isn\u2019t being dealt with well. But it\u2019s a hard situation, I acknowledge, to deal with if you\u2019re dealing with some really quite confidential matters,\u201d Beilby said of the HOTC governance review.<\/p>\n

Beilby and another Auckland Council source told the Herald that HOTC members had expressed frustration with the lack of communication to members after Beck\u2019s suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just no information. What\u2019s happening? Who\u2019s been appointed an acting manager? I wouldn\u2019t even know who to call at the moment,\u201d Beilby said. <\/p>\n

An executive committee (board) spokesperson confirmed a person could be a HOTC member in two ways: by owning a commercially rated property in the targeted rate area, or by being an occupier or tenant and operating a business in such a property.<\/p>\n

\u201cHOTC\u2019s practice has been to take a broad interpretation of who can be members,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, \u2018operating a business\u2019 has not been interpreted to mean owning a business. It is sufficient to be carrying out business from a central city location. Likewise, we have accepted representatives of public and government institutions on this list, along with private business. For example, the Commerce Commission and the Auckland District Court are currently represented on the membership list.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the HOTC board was satisfied that the chair, McCracken, was a member by virtue of this second \u201coperating\u201d criterion. The HOTC executive committee intends to discuss the possibility of a special general meeting at its next board meeting.<\/p>\n

The HOTC board is also able to proactively call a special general meeting, which they will discuss at their next board meeting. The HOTC spokesperson says this has been communicated to Bielby.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve Bielby, owner of the St James Theatre, outside its rear entrance on Lorne St. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray<\/p>\n

The Herald has also obtained several letters from irritated Auckland CBD landlords and business figures sent to McCracken after he said in a Spinoff article on February 18 that he would be further investigating concerns raised by politicians over HOTC.<\/p>\n

In that article, Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick said Beck had contributed to a media narrative that the CBD was full of \u201cchaos and crime and knives and guns\u201d. Swarbrick said Beck\u2019s public messaging was \u201chugely detrimental to the city\u201d.<\/p>\n

These letters were sent to McCracken before Beck was stood down. <\/p>\n

One, from someone who described themselves as one of the largest real estate owners in Auckland, told McCracken he had none of the relevant commercial real estate or retail experience needed to be HOTC chair.<\/p>\n

Shortly after McCracken became the HOTC chair he left KPMG to take on a role as a Commissioner on the Independent Hearings Panel for Auckland Council Plan Change 120. The massive shake-up of the city\u2019s planning rules will allow for greater density and high-rise apartments.<\/p>\n

The large real estate owner said in his letter to McCracken: \u201cI fear that your role is a political appointment and that you are seeking to pursue your own agenda \u2026 It seems astonishing and irresponsible that the board would have appointed such an inappropriate chair \u2026 I\u2019m not confidence [sic] in your ability to represent HOTC and would ask that you stand down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another letter from a chief executive to HOTC\u2019s main email says McCracken has asked \u201cAucklanders to reject, in true Orwellian style, the evidence of their own eyes and ears\u201d in allegedly ignoring the level of crime in the CBD.<\/p>\n

The chief executive describes McCracken\u2019s willingness to speak with people about HOTC\u2019s allegedly negative messaging as \u201cnonsense\u201d, which McCracken should be \u201cashamed\u201d of.<\/p>\n

\u201cViv Beck seems to be the only person publicly standing up for all of us who live and work in the central city,\u201d the person says.<\/p>\n

Another business figure also expressed concern that the \u201cnew chair\u2019s inexperienced and the fact he appears to have no commercial investment in property assets in the city\u201d. They too said McCracken\u2019s appointment needed \u201cimmediate reconsideration\u201d, and suggested people with no property investments have no place on the HOTC board. <\/p>\n

. <\/p>\n

In a statement this month, a spokesperson for the HOTC executive committee told the Herald the board was \u201cunited on the need for stronger governance\u201d, which had been identified as an \u201curgent priority\u201d.<\/p>\n

The executive committee has set up an audit and finance committee to provide \u201cgreater and more detailed financial oversight\u201d.<\/p>\n

It has also undertaken an urgent update of board and governance processes, including engaging \u201cindependent external special counsel\u201d to ensure board meeting processes, agendas, decisions and minutes were compliant \u201cfor the sake of transparency\u201d. HOTC\u2019s executive committee also agreed to an independent governance review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AucklandAuckland mayoral candidate Viv Beck pulled out of her campaign on September 16. Photo \/ Greg Bowker<\/p>\n

Beilby says he hasn\u2019t spoken to Beck, but says the \u201cinformation void\u201d from both the HOTC executive team and the board has caused huge angst among many members.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral members who came to me could have made this a bit more of a nuclear kind of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to try to calm it down, I\u2019ve liaised with the board and written to them and said, \u2018Look, I\u2019ve just got some questions here\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

In March, Beilby told the Herald the members he was speaking with were considering some form of legal challenge, such as a judicial review, if an HOTC special general meeting was not called.<\/p>\n

At the time, he also defended Beck from criticism that her messaging was overly negative and that her campaigning for greater law and order dominated other priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an organisation that is especially there for those business owners. This isn\u2019t the city centre residents\u2019 group, this isn\u2019t some of those other advocacy groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose very negative views definitely exist within the city and need hard conversations \u2026 [HOTC] is about addressing these confronting issues. The city centre is a hard place, it\u2019s not puppies and rainbows the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck and Krukziener were contacted for comment for this article.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another HOTC member pushing for the special general meeting is Greg Moyle \u2013 the Waitemat\u0101 local board member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,9092,196645,51,73779,1558,2372,138,5842,31426,219408,6636,3937,2199,13849,84246,3938,3232,2294,305,2862,38530,17147,2374,219407,106644,3234,111,43,139,69,1118,9831,3044,40249,3466,1962,12066,223,213612,2940],"class_list":["post-428047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-against","tag-associations","tag-auckland","tag-becks","tag-been","tag-board","tag-business","tag-calling","tag-cbd","tag-chairperson","tag-challenge","tag-chief","tag-city","tag-citys","tag-emails","tag-executive","tag-fourth","tag-general","tag-have","tag-heart","tag-landlords","tag-legitimacy","tag-meeting","tag-mobilise","tag-mobilising","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-question","tag-resignation","tag-seeking","tag-sending","tag-special","tag-suspension","tag-the","tag-viv","tag-wealthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428047","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=428047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}