Councils are responsible for providing several services that are essential to keeping everyone healthy and safe.
Each year, the Wellington City Council sets its overall budget as part of the Annual or Long-term Plan process. The rates-funded component of that budget is then collected from property owners.
Council rates keep our city functioning. The money collected is used to deliver hundreds of essential services and pay for what has been borrowed to fund major infrastructure projects.
Services include ensuring households have safe drinking water, wastewater system keeps operating, recreational facilities are looked after, burials and cemeteries can take place, and essential roading and safety repairs are made.
Key infrastructure and services include:
- 827 kilometres of stormwater pipes
- 1,085 kilometres of wastewater pipes
- 416 litres of drinkable water supplied per resident per day
- 995 kilometres of footpaths
- 110,105 native plants planted with the community
- 2 million physical items borrowed from our libraries
- 391 kilometres of walking and biking tracks
- 803,971 resources in City Archives
- 169,628 calls answered by our Contact Centre staff
- 2014 square meters of open space per Wellingtonian
- 107 play areas
- 277 community facilities.
Long-term plan
The 2024–34 Long-term Plan, which came into force on 1 July 2024, was amended to reflect an October 2024 Council decision to not sell our shares in Wellington International Airport Limited. The Amended Long-term Plan includes reducing our budgets to ensure we have money for an emergency or natural disaster:
- $3.5 billion of capital expenditure – which will be spent on improving Pōneke over the next 10 years (down from $4.9 billion)
- $8.96 billion of operating expenditure – to run our services over the next 10 years (down from $11.6 billion).
In response to the Government’s Local Water Done Well reform process, the Long-term Plan now reflects that from 1 July 2026 ownership, cost and responsibility of the three-waters network will no longer be with the Council.
Other key investments and work in the Amended Long-term Plan include:
- $27.6 million on waste minimisation programmes
- $37.4 million spent on upgrading and renewing the city’s Coastal, Town Belt and Reserves infrastructure
- $108.6 million of funding for recreation facilities and services
- $488.6 million on operational costs for social housing
- $559.6 million on renewing and upgrading social housing units
- $108.6 million for the completion of the Te Matapihi Central Library
- $925.1 million for the transport network, including $71.4 million on sustainable street changes
- $500,000 extra each year on social grants for safety initiatives in the city centre.
See more information on the budget and the investments as outlined in the 2024–34 Long-term Plan.
Sludge levy
In 2024 a levy was added to rates bills as a separate line item.
The levy is to cover the approximately $400 million required to pay for the construction of Te Whare Wai Para Nuku, the Moa Point sludge minimisation facility.
Find out more about the sludge minimisation facility levy.