Wellington City Council Quarterly Report October – December 2007 PDWCC67154 A message from the Chief Executive Wellington City Council Quarterly Report – October to December 2007 The lead up to Christmas was a busy time for Wellington City. This quarter included the Local Body Elections, the inauguration of the new Council, high-profile events, and the Council achieving a number of significant milestones. With regard to the environment and sustainability, the Council: • furthered its commitment to making Wellington a carbon-neutral city by presenting a draft Climate Change Action Plan • became one of the first councils in the country to take part in the Government’s public place recycling initiative. Recycling bins are being placed in locations around central Wellington. The Convention Centre also became the first venue of its kind to achieve the ISO 14001 environmental standard. Projects and programmes progressed this quarter included the completion of Cog Park and the opening of the Mount Victoria lookout by the Mayor. Consultation was undertaken on key projects, including the design of the Indoor Community Sports Centre and the upgrade plans for Central Park. The summer calendar of events kicked off in style with the arrival of the LA Galaxy football team and its star player David Beckham. Around 15,000 people, including school children, attended the training session and a crowd of 35,000 watched the match against the Wellington Phoenix. The Pelorus Trust Sky show also attracted a large crowd for the annual fireworks display and families celebrated the start of the festive season with the annual Farmers Santa Parade. This Quarterly Report provides an update on the Council’s consolidated financial performance for the year to date and sets out operational and financial progress towards delivering the outcomes and activities approved in the Council’s Annual Plan. This Quarterly Report is also available on the Council’s website - www.Wellington.govt.nz. Garry Poole CHIEF EXECUTIVE A MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY_________ This report provides an outline of the Council’s activities for the period 1 October to 31 December 2007 and a consolidated financial view for the period 1 July to 31 December 2007. It presents detailed information for each activity by strategy area and group. Its purpose is to provide assurance that each activity is being carried out to plan, with explanations where there are variances. The report also provides assurance that the Revenue and Financing Policy targets are being monitored. HIGHLIGHTS The Meridian building opened and received a New Zealand Five Star ‘Green’ rating. Stages 1 and 2 of the Kumutoto public space were also completed. Cog Park was completed and opened on 10 November 2007. We received a high number of building consent applications during this quarter (936 with 911 issued) and continued to work on improving our timeframes for the issuing of building consents improving from 51% on time last quarter to 81% on time this quarter. We granted 268 resource consents and received 102 requests for pre-application meetings for new sites, approximately double the number for the same period in 2006. The estimated economic impact to the city of major events assisted by the Events Development Fund is $6,000,000. This was predominantly as a result of the interest generated by the visit of the LA Galaxy soccer team and David Beckham. The convention centre staged 248 events, of which 34 were concerts with a total attendance of 14,300 people. We also held 29 conferences, attracting 4,103 delegates. The Wellington Convention Centre became the first conference and events venue in New Zealand to achieve the ISO 14001 series of environmental standards A draft Climate Change Action Plan was delivered to Council in December 2007. This is an important first step in delivering a Carbon Neutral future for Wellington City Council. The public place recycling initiative was launched in Wellington by Prime Minister Helen Clarke, which involves four three-year trials of locating recycling bins in busy parts of central Wellington. Wellington Zoo received notification that it had been granted $400,000 form the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board to put towards the new zoo hospital. We established the Housing Upgrade Project (HUP) team, appointed Novak and Middleton Architects to work on concept designs, and began scoping work for the investment programme. We commenced the construction of the Newlands Community Centre. We were awarded the Outstanding Community Safety Project for the Christmas campaign in the NZ Safety Awards in October 2007. The ‘e-Petition’ initiative on the Council’s website was well received, with five e-Petitions initiated. PRIORITY PROJECTS 1.0 Urban Development Management of residential infill development We advanced our work towards a targeted approach to infill housing - the process of building new dwellings within an existing suburban residential boundary. This included: • Council held a hearing and made a decision on all the submissions received on Plan Change 56 Managing Infill Housing. • Undertaking further research to identify options for targeting residential infill. This included a citywide character study, roading and parking constraints, transport accessibility, and social infrastructure capacity. Growth Spine Centres • This project is one of the key methods for implementing the Urban Development Strategy. It involves the phased development of detailed concept plans for the major growth nodes that together form the growth spine. • Implementation of the Johnsonville Town Centre Plan was considered further including the best way to integrate it into the District Plan and other ongoing policy development and to achieve the best outcomes from the proposed redevelopment of the Mall. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL • The Adelaide Road Framework project was started, with initial research completed and public consultation on key issues underway. 2.0 Transport Port and ferry access The project aims to improve traffic and freight access to CentrePort and the ferry terminal and manage the forecasted growth in traffic on the Quays. • We worked with Harbour Quays to understand how their developments might affect our traffic modelling. This work has been fed into the detailed design of the area, in particular the new intersections on Waterloo Quay. A new pedestrian crossing over Waterloo Quay at Hinemoa Street is under construction. • Ongoing work is being carried out with the Stadium Trust and New Zealand Rail Corporation on the proposed new road layout to ensure their interests are addressed. Travel Demand Management programme The project aims to control road congestion, improve the performance of the city’s transport system and moderate road space demand. • Work continued on developing a Walking Plan for the city and an Organisational Travel Plan for the Council. • The community travel planning pilot called Getting Around Wellington got underway with a focus on the Southern and eastern suburbs. The Sustainability Trust was engaged to deliver this project on behalf of the Council and made contact to community groups and associations. Those contacted were given support on how they can make changes to their individual travel behaviours which will help improve the city's overall transport system. 3.0 Economic Development Information and communications infrastructure This project aims to enhance the city’s communications infrastructure and build ICT skills. There have been many developments in the telecommunications sector over the past few months and these have been assessed for their potential impact on the Council’s role. This quarter we continued work on developing a business case for an urban fibre network. The configuration and costs of a network has required significant analysis, and we have worked on discussing inputs from potential industry and government partners. At an infrastructure policy level, a number of areas have been considered such as shallow trenching, utilising unused ducts, and options for installing fibre optic cable in existing large stormwater and sewerage pipes. We worked on five key aspects of the business case, including: • analysis of the broadband benefits for the City • completion of a financial model to demonstrate the viability of the project • monitoring developments in the national and international telecommunications industry • stakeholder engagement programme • a risk management plan. 4.0 Environment Energy management plan The primary objective of this project is to understand and control the Council’s corporate energy consumption and expenditure. Reduction in energy consumption will ultimately result in reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Wellington City Council is committed to becoming carbon neutral and managing energy use is a key component in that goal. Furthermore, energy costs continue to rise and the most effective way to mitigate that risk is through energy conservation. Recent accomplishments within the project work programme include: • A thorough audit of all the Council’s electricity accounts has been completed allowing us to better understand where the energy is being consumed. • Thanks to Todd Energy; an electricity generation project is in its final stages at the Carrey’s Gully landfill. • A Draft Climate Change Action Plan was presented to Councillors in December. This plan is an important first step in delivering a carbon neutral future to both the Council and Wellington