Legislation introduced to Parliament on 12 December to provide additional tools to fund and finance infrastructure has been welcomed by Auckland Council.
“As a region facing rapid growth, we’ve been very vocal on the need to have more tools available to councils in order to fund the critical infrastructure that’s needed to support more housing," says Mayor Phil Goff.
“The Auckland Unitary Plan has enabled more than enough land supply to support our population growth over the next 30 years, but the constant challenge we face is how to pay for the infrastructure so that new homes can be delivered where they are needed.
“I’m particularly pleased to see that this legislation extends to funding public transport, community facilities and environmental resilience infrastructure like flood protection. This means that strong, connected and resilient communities can be created for the future.”
Under the new legislation, finance for the infrastructure project would be raised through a stand-alone entity (also known as a Special Purpose Vehicle or SPV). The SPV would be enabled to raise finance for the infrastructure project, collect a multi-year levy to repay the finance, and contract for the delivery of the infrastructure.
Councillor Desley Simpson, Chair of the Finance and Performance Committee is looking forward to examining the legislation in more detail to understand how it could be used in Auckland.
“In our last 10 -year budget we committed over $26 billion of spend to capital projects in our region. This is huge, but our challenge is bigger.
“We’re hopeful today’s announcement gives us options to deliver more infrastructure earlier, in a way that is not going to disproportionately impact our debt position.
“We welcome any opportunities to progress change and improvement across the region.”
