East & Bays Courier – By Alice Parminter – 24 February 2016: Popular councillor Cameron Brewer has confirmed he will not be seeking re-election next term, paving the way for Orakei Local Board chair Desley Simpson to step up.

Simpson has also confirmed she will be running for Brewer’s vacant councillor seat.

Brewer is taking a break from politics, although he will not rule out a return in the future.

“With nearly three kids, a wife, being councillor, as well as a small businessman, it’s a busy life so I’m looking forward to more family time and growing my business credentials,” he says.

The councillor has moved to the Helensville electorate, and there is speculation that he may contest the MP seat in the future when John Key steps down.

“That’s all hypothetical – perhaps in 10, 15 years time … who knows? But I’m certainly not hanging my hat on that,” he says.

Brewer says some of his major achievements during his two terms have been shining light on council spending and debt levels and pushing for public consultation on the level of the Uniform Annual General Charge.

“I reckon my actions and exposure on costs has made for a more disciplined council and saved ratepayers in the long run. However there’s still a long way to go and that’s why I’m hoping for a political change of mayor, not just a replacement mayor.”

Simpson says she was happy with her time on the Orakei Local Board, but now she’s keen for a new challenge.

“I’m passionate about where I live,” she says. “I haven’t worked this hard to get Orakei where it is to leave it. And for me the next step is to actually take a few more things across the line.”

She will be running on the Citizens and Ratepayers ticket, but says that her focus is on collaboration across all parties.

“Teamwork is the way for success in politics,” she says.

Simpson says that the current councillors haven’t been effective communicators, and she is looking to change that by forming an agreement on common objectives with other councillors across all political parties.

Simpson says one of her key initiatives in her time as the board chair was the establishment of seven Residents’ Associations across the ward.

“How do you know what your community thinks on the issues?”

Brewer is endorsing Simpson’s bid.

“Desley’s great strength from my perspective is her ability to bring people together,” he says. “That will be her strength as a councillor too.”

Both Simpson and Brewer will have been in their current roles for six years by October. They say the timing is right to move on, and they are grateful to the Orakei community and the other board members for their support.

They say they will remain fully committed to their current roles until the end of their terms, and both have encouraged residents to continue to contact them with issues and queries.

Centre-right Simpson would not be drawn on who she is supporting for mayor.

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Media release – Thursday, 18 February 2016:

“It’s encouraging that Auckland Mayor Len Brown has this morning promised an extra-ordinary meeting of the full council to consider the 11 councillors’ calls for the council’s latest and far-reaching ‘out-of-scope’ changes to be withdrawn,” says Auckland Councillor for Orakei, Cameron Brewer.

The meeting will be next week, open to the public, and the public can apply to speak.

“Some of those trying to defend this mess over the past couple months have tried to argue that the public’s latest concern is just NIMBY-ism. That’s rubbish.

“This has never been about who supports residential intensification and who doesn’t. All councillors support the need to intensify Auckland where it can be sustained. Our concerns here are about process and ensuring property owners retain some form of natural justice. Our calls are about ensuring greater transparency and accountability.”

Mr Brewer says the Orakei ward is impacted more than most with some suburbs like Glendowie almost entirely marked for further upzoning in the council’s latest changes without any consultation.

“Most constituents contacting me are genuinely concerned about the changes, and just wanted the ability to have their say. Many are worried about the impacts further intensification will have on the likes of existing infrastructure and in the likes of flood plains. They’re not NIMBYs. They’re just really worried and bloody frustrated.

“Another myth being circulated is that this latest round of proposed upzoning will help solve ‘Auckland’s housing affordability crisis’. Again, rubbish. When you apply much greater development potential on a market attractive property, its price will only rise, as will its rates.”

“I am pleased the Mayor has now taken some control of the issue. However the public needs to keep the pressure on all elected representatives ahead of next week’s critical meeting,” says Mr Brewer.

Ends

Cameron Brewer (021) 828-016 

Comment by Cameron Brewer – January 2016:

Auckland Council has released its out-of-scope zoning revisions to the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) the draft of which was signed off on 30 September 2013.

The eastern suburbs have been hit hard by the rezoning, which is upsetting many locals following huge public meetings and outrage early in 2013 when they thought they’d been listened to.

Back then the Mayor and councillors agreed to water down the intensification plans after significant public outcry. I worked closely with the Orakei Local Board and community groups to secure some provisions in the PAUP which would protect the special character of our surrounding neighbourhoods.

Now much of that watering down has been strengthened up again in secret and without any public mandate. Glendowie in particular has been hit hard by Auckland Council’s intensification measures. Roughly 70 percent of the suburb has been rezoned from Single House to Mixed Housing Suburban and up to 15 percent is now classed as Mixed Housing Urban where before there was zero.

This proposed intensification comes at the same time residents are worried that Auckland Transport is set to take away bus services for the eastern suburbs.

While the push to stop high-rise apartments being built along Kohimarama beach front may have been successful, up to 50 percent of Kohimarama has undergone some form of intensification with large swathes of Mixed Housing Suburban being upzoned as urban which strips these areas of any meaningful density controls.

Large areas to the south of and surrounding Remuera’s village have been upzoned to allow for more Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings (THAB) while alarmingly almost a quarter of the Single House zones on Remuera’s northern side have been reclassified as Mixed Housing Suburban.

St Heliers has also seen several areas intensified with housing around Glover Park being rezoned as Mixed Housing Suburban and Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings continuing down St Heliers Bay Road to St Heliers School/ Riddell Road.

The suburb of Orakei has also been upzoned considerably.

It’s not just height, it’s density (see table below). In the widespread Mixed Housing Suburban zone, all a developer now needs to secure is a quarter of an acre. By combining the likes of two neighbouring sections, he can then put in a low-rise apartment complex with no density restrictions whatsoever right next to you in your quiet leafy suburb.

That’s a serious backtrack to what the public was promised in 2013. I was pleased to sign Councillor Dick Quax’s Notice Of Motion recently to push the issues back to the public to allow for people’s views on these changes to be heard.

Sadly Mayor Len Brown threw out that Notice Of Motion at the last council meeting of the year. For the nine of us councillors who supported the failed Notice Of Motion these changes are dramatic and completely undemocratic.

At least the public can now see exactly what’s going on and can really lean on the councillors ahead us passing the final Unitary Plan next year – unfortunately that is the best and next chance to secure any significant change.

Like it was in 2013, this will be a huge local body election issue in 2016, and there’ll be many political causalities if Auckland’s concerned voices are not heard.

Changes in density provisions since 2013:

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Media statement – Saturday, 30 January 2016:

Auckland Councillor Cameron Brewer says its over-the-top Auckland Council is telling ratepayer-funded staff to stay away and ‘flexi-work’ on Thursday 4 February due to imminent protests around SkyCity next door to Auckland Council’s HQ in Federal and Albert streets.

“Auckland Council’s total wage and salary bill is over $2m a day, and given over 21% of staff work in 135 Albert Street, and that’s where our best paid operate from, half a million dollars in salaries to stay away and ‘flexi-work’ on Thursday is a very conservative guess,” says Mr Brewer.

“Council meetings have been cancelled and councillors are being sent 25kms south to the Manukau Civic Centre that day.

“It’s nothing to do with us so I’m surprised ratepayers are now being asked to fund us and many staff to relocate for the day. We should be staying put, not running away. How pathetic is that?

“Rest assured council’s overly dramatic relocation for the day will cost hundreds of thousands of ratepayers dollars and wont make one bit of difference. The protestors are not after us so why are we fleeing?” “Lets stay put and show some resolve. Thankfully the council leadership were not advising the Royal Family during the London Blitz, otherwise they would’ve been the first to bail to Scotland. Keep calm and carry on I say,” says Cameron Brewer.

Ends

Media release – Wednesday, 27 January 2016:

“Most Aucklanders will be pleased the National Government is moving on its commitment to the City Rail Link. However Labour’s mayoral candidate Phil Goff won’t be happy that John Key’s shown the money so soon,” says Auckland Councillor for Orakei Cameron Brewer.

“A big election platform for Phil Goff is working with Wellington to ensure the City Rail Link is delivered sooner. However that’s now going to happen regardless and so effectively the rug’s been pulled on a big part of Goff’s mayoral campaign just two months after he announced his candidacy.  

“Let’s just say now with the City Rail Link locked and loaded, the reason to engage Phil Goff and all his parliamentary service to get the job done is not required. In fact a more National-aligned Mayor would be better placed to ensure this critical partnership stays on track.”

Mr Brewer says while it’s positive for ratepayers the Government is formalising its commitment sooner, it will not be a 50/50 Government/Auckland Council funded project as Mayor Len Brown tries his best to imply.

“The funding split is actually more like 40/60 Government/Auckland Council. The council’s 2015-2025 budget forecasts assume the Government will commit $1.039b and the council will fund $1.490b – taking the total capital expenditure cost to $2.529b. This is largely because the Government will not fund the costly three-year enabling works currently underway.

“Ratepayers need to be fully aware the Government’s renewed commitment is for the main construction works from 2018. The Prime Minister has made that explicitly clear in his speech.

“The cost of the enabling works until then falls entirely on ratepayers simply because Len Brown started the project without the Government. That is a huge failure. Let’s hope the costs for the current enabling works don’t blow out as that tab is for ratepayers to pick up alone.”

Mr Brewer says cost containment will be the biggest challenge for the City Rail Link project with ratepayers not taxpayers most exposed given it remains council-led.

“Let’s not forget that in 2005 the City Rail Link was reported to cost from $500m. By 2010 it hit $2 billion and despite dropping Newton Station it’s now forecast to cost over $2.5 billion. Given the expected cost went up five-fold over the past decade, rest assured there will be more cost escalation over the next decade.”

Mr Brewer says another concern for ratepayers is the fact that council’s operational budget forecasts show the City Rail Link will require an over $100m operational subsidy each and every year – and that’s after receiving NZTA subsidies and passenger farebox revenue.

“It’s a good day for the project but plenty of red flags remain for Auckland’s ratepayers, particularly when you consider there’ll now be a renewed push within council to hit Auckland drivers sooner with the likes of motorway tolls or fuel taxes to help pay for the City Rail Link.” 

Ends

Herald On Sunday – By Simon Plumb – Sunday, 24 January 2016:

An Auckland councillor has slammed spending inside Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s office as “out of control”, saying an annual budget of more than $4 million could be “easily halved”.

Orakei councillor Cameron Brewer says that while some council departments have been cut and ratepayers are having to dig deeper to live in New Zealand’s biggest city, more and more money is going through the mayor’s office.

Council figures show the budget to run Brown’s team hit $4.1 million in the 2014/15 financial year with actual spending of $3.7 million – the equivalent of more than $10,000 a day.

Those numbers are up from the previous year, when annual spending dropped $240,000 to $3.3m.

Among the costs are an increased wage bill, with Brown’s team earning $2.3 million in salaries in 2014/15 compared with $1.9m in 2011/12.

The annual budget of the Auckland mayor’s office is bound by legislation. The Local Government Act 2009 specifies a minimum 0.2 per cent of the council’s budgeted operating costs. For 2014-15 the operating expenditure budget for the council was $3.47 billion.

But Brewer, who worked inside the Auckland City mayor’s office 14 years ago as a communications adviser to John Banks, says a quantum leap in cost-cutting is there for the taking.

“The mayoral office budget should and could be easily halved. It shouldn’t cost $4m a year,” Brewer told the Herald on Sunday.

“I would’ve thought $2m was more than enough – particularly when you think the office is supported by a huge service-based organisation that includes half a dozen council-controlled organisations and over 11,300 council staff.”

With Brown due to end his embattled reign in October, Brewer says the successor should be voted in based on whether they want to cut costs – primarily by reducing the staff of the mayor’s office.

“It doesn’t need to have 21 staff drawing $2.3m in salaries nor does it need a raft of consultants and contractors invoicing nearly $600,000.

“But, alarmingly, that’s the current model,” Brewer said.

“Salaries are overwhelmingly the majority of the office costs, so if you just cut back the number of staff you’ll shave the operational budget considerably.”

In response, the mayor’s office pointed to Brown regularly coming in under budget and that the rules were set by the Government.

“Government established a mayoral office budget including staffing by statute,” a spokesman said. “Although that [0.2 per cent] was a minimum and the amount could be increased, the mayor has kept the budget to that minimum, never asked for more and consistently underspent the budget.

“He has also allowed the budget to be used for non-budgeted items that are considered important by the council. A recent example is the Ports of Auckland Future Study.”

Leading mayoral candidate Phil Goff said he had received “a stream of public feedback” about how public money could be made to go further and cost-cutting would be at the core of his campaign.

“It’s incumbent on council, including the mayor’s office, to look for more efficiency,” Goff said. “One of my major platforms … will be we do things in the most efficient way. We eliminate waste and duplication.

“My reputation in central Government was always to be a bit of a Scrooge when it came to spending money on my own budget.”

Goff said he was not prepared to commit to an “arbitrary” figure of what the budget needed to be.

Fellow mayoral candidate Vic Crone said council spending was “out of control”.

“The mayor’s office is yet another example, with both expenditure as well as the number of personnel too high.”

Media release – Wednesday, 6 January 2016:

Auckland ratepayers should be worried council staff from ATEED are now deep in talks with Dick Smith NRL Nines promoters Duco Events following the naming rights sponsor of the February tournament going into receivership, says Auckland Councillor for Orakei, Cameron Brewer.

“Ratepayers are already pouring $12 million into the NRL Nines and as much fun as it is, most Aucklanders would think that’s more than enough.

“I appreciate the annual tournament’s economic benefits have supposedly been higher than what was forecast from the outset. However that can be no excuse for Auckland ratepayers now being thrown a hospital pass due to Dick Smith’s predicament.

“The worry is Len Brown is very gung-ho about the NRL Nines, and ATEED may now argue lifting ratepayers’ contribution on the grounds of regional economic benefits. However this sponsorship gap needs to be filled by the private sector, not by the poor old suburban ratepayer.

“As per usual Auckland Council will be seen by some as a soft touch. I call on the council leadership to now rule out any extra financial commitment from ratepayers,” says Mr Brewer.

Ends

Comment by Cameron Brewer on Taylor Swift’s music video filmed on Bethells Beach – 1 January 2016:

The imagery of Bethells is absolutely breath taking and is now being admired by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Auckland Council should roll out the carpet for mega stars like Taylor Swift, not sit there and count the cars, cry foul, and effectively insult the woman. She may have breached her permit by having a few more vehicles but lets not forget the best form of environmental conservation is global exposure. Just ask David Attenborough.

Auckland Council has spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of ratepayer dollars coming up with a supposedly film friendly policy, and just when we get the worlds biggest music star filming at Bethells Beach, she’s publicly humiliated.

No dotterels’ were ever harmed. This is the best global coverage for our west coast beaches since Dame Jane Campion’s The Piano movie nearly 25 years ago.

Taylor Swift deserves a huge thank you for doing Auckland proud while others now probably need to eat some humble pie.

Comment by Cameron Brewer – 17 December 2015:

Auckland Council has released its revisions to the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) the draft of which was signed off on 30 September 2013.

The eastern suburbs have been hit hard by the rezoning, which is upsetting many locals following huge public meetings and outrage early in 2013 when they thought they’d been listened to.

Back then the Mayor and councillors agreed to water down the intensification plans after significant public outcry. I worked closely with the Orakei Local Board and community groups to secure some provisions in the PAUP which would protect the special character of our surrounding neighbourhoods.

Now much of that watering down has been strengthened up again in secret and without any public mandate. Glendowie in particular has been hit hard by Auckland Council’s intensification measures. Roughly 70 percent of the suburb has been rezoned from Single House to Mixed Housing Suburban and up to 15 percent is now classed as Mixed Housing Urban where before there was zero.

This proposed intensification comes at the same time residents are worried that Auckland Transport is set to take away bus services for the eastern suburbs.

While the push to stop high-rise apartments being built along Kohimarama beach front may have been successful, up to 50 percent of Kohimarama has undergone some form of intensification with large swathes of Mixed Housing Suburban being upzoned as urban which strips these areas of any meaningful density controls.

Large areas to the south of and surrounding Remuera’s village have been upzoned to allow for more Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings (THAB) while alarmingly almost a quarter of the Single House zones on Remuera’s northern side have been reclassified as Mixed Housing Suburban.

St Heliers has also seen several areas intensified with housing around Glover Park being rezoned as Mixed Housing Suburban and Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings continuing down St Heliers Bay Road to St Heliers School/ Riddell Road.

The suburb of Orakei has also been upzoned considerably.

It’s not just height, it’s density (see table below). In the widespread Mixed Housing Suburban zone, all a developer now needs to secure is a quarter of an acre. By combining the likes of two neighbouring sections, he can then put in a low-rise apartment complex with no density restrictions whatsoever right next to you in your quiet leafy suburb.

That’s a serious backtrack to what the public was promised in 2013. I was pleased to sign Councillor Dick Quax’s Notice Of Motion recently to push the issues back to the public to allow for people’s views on these changes to be heard.

Sadly Mayor Len Brown threw out that Notice Of Motion at the last council meeting of the year. For the nine of us councillors who supported the failed Notice Of Motion these changes are dramatic and completely undemocratic.

At least the public can now see exactly what’s going on and can really lean on the councillors ahead us passing the final Unitary Plan next year – unfortunately that is the best and next chance to secure any significant change.

Like it was in 2013, this will be a huge local body election issue in 2016, and there’ll be many political causalities if Auckland’s concerned voices are not heard.

Changes in density provisions since 2013:

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Media release – 10 December 2015:

The many Auckland businesses sitting on properties with CVs worth between $750,000 to $2 million are set to see their Transport Targeted Rate go up 145% from $183 to $450 each year if Len Brown gets his way, warns Auckland Councillor for Orakei, Cameron Brewer in response to the Mayoral Proposal on the 2016/17 Annual Plan released today.

 “When a few of us pushed for the level and composition of the Transport Targeted Rate to be reviewed during the 10-year budget, I never anticipated that the Mayor would respond by just socking small and medium-sized businesses. They’re Auckland’s bread and butter. At the time nine out of 19 of us voted for the organisation to find more of the money within, not just put the hand out to the business community.

“Moving from a fixed amount to a sliding scale for businesses dependent on property value needs to be interrogated by businesses and representative associations before council signs off this 2015/16 budget mid-next year. This of course comes on top of the recent LTP decision to delay the council’s target of narrowing the business rating differential by another 14 years to 2036/37,” he says.

Mr Brewer is pleased the Uniform Annual General Charge is up for review, with an increase of the fixed component of household rates long overdue.

“The Mayor’s now calling for rating stability but that hasn’t been a concern for him over the past five years when his low UAGC stung Auckland’s higher valued properties. The public now needs to take the opportunity and have their say on the UAGC.”

On debt, Mr Brewer says annual interest rate payments on group debt will increase from over $400m to close to three-quarters of a billion dollars over the coming decade, limiting future generations on project options as more and more revenue goes to servicing debt.

“I accept debt is inevitable, but unlike household mortgage debt most of council’s assets are not ever realisable, our interest commitments will double not halve over time, and the principal won’t be paid off anytime soon.”

On assets, Mr Brewer says it’s disappointing the council’s $500,000 recent asset review is not even mentioned and needs to be as the public will want to have their say and make suggestions next year.

 He describes the ‘Myth Busting’ references throughout today’s Mayoral Proposal as purely political and churlish.

 “This is all very defensive and unnecessary. The likes of rating and debt levels are genuine concerns out there among our ratepayers, resident associations, business and community groups. These kind of important issues will form the basis of next year’s local body elections. They shouldn’t be dismissed as myths,” says Cameron Brewer.

Ends