Hi all 

Apologies for the delay in responding. Rest assured however that in the meantime Tom has been following up on the various strands of work that have been identified and will send you an email about that soon!

I think it's easiest if I just respond to the points you've raised in the order you raised them but I'll first make a few general comments about where I see things sitting from our perspective.

As I see it much of the frustration and last-minute nature of things thus far, which has not been ideal for either of us, comes down to two (related) things.

 

1. Trying to meet EECA milestones in order to secure your central govt funding and

2. Trying to line things up with Council budgeting and decision making timelines, which are largely set in legislation so not able to be moved, as well as processes which include public consultation phases which must be carried out in good faith and with no pre-determination of outcome. 

 

On the first matter I reiterate that had we been included in the development of your EECA bid (or even been told about it) then we could have ensured realistic alignment with Council's statutory decision making timeline. Every other private sector entity we've worked with on EECA bids has included us as a partner and shared all information accordingly. We only knew about your bid because you asked Justin for a letter of support on the day it was due and he rang me for advice. This is despite your ability to deliver being heavily dependent on Council providing significant public space within the CBD which is why I remain surprised that you didn't include us in its development. I can see how you might think allowing "six months for Council process on a project with a signed letter of support from the Council" is adequate but budgeting decisions for the annual plan begin far in advance of that and had we been consulted I could've told you that! And nothing in that letter of support committed us to a six month timeframe - and nor could it. I agree that we need to not dwell on the past but this point seems to keep being glossed over and from our perspective it's at the heart of most of our challenges as a Council to meet your requests. And again we have had no input into the development of your milestones with EECA, which have now been agreed, despite numerous offers to participate in those discussions so that EECA doesn't put unrealistic expectations on you to deliver in timeframes that simply aren't possible. 

 

On the second matter - because the scale of your ambitions is such that it can’t be met out of existing budgets it has to go through our annual plan process for Councillor approval. As I've said before - had we known the scale of your intentions a year ago when Council passed the Low Carbon Capital Plan we could have incorporated the costs of meeting that scale into the budget at that point but hindsight is 20:20. We are doing all we can to facilitate your requests through those processes but as I'm sure you appreciate we are not the only Council officers trying to progress projects that we deem important and add value to the City. And with our Mayor taking a very firm position on limiting rates increases we are working within very tight fiscal constraints. And as I fed back to you our Councillors definitely see a Council commitment to Mevo of 27 car parks in the first year to be a significant commitment. 

 

In response to your specific comments: 

First off notwithstanding my earlier comments thanks for sending through the EECA milestones. That’s really helpful. Just as a matter of interests when exactly were these agreed to and signed off?  Also I'm not entirely clear what you mean by this not being the schedule you're working to - does this mean 30 September is actually 31 July in terms of what you're working to in reality? If that's the case then the only sites we could get approved by the end of July are the 21 sites we've already consulted on for you. We can get the traffic resolutions done for the first ten on 14 September so that would meet the 30 September milestone. In terms of the 31st October milestone, the Traffic Resolutions for these would also need to be lodged by 30 June (and that's TRs completed not just sites selected) in order to go through on September 14. For the 30 January milestone these would need to go through in the November 16 round (TRs lodged August 1). For the 31 October and 30 January sites these would also need to be outside of the CBD metered parking in order to stay within the budget and agreed 3 year cap on CBD car park allocation agreed to by Council. 

In terms of the discussion we had on the 31st – on a slightly minor point my understanding was we put the TRs on hold not that we had pulled them entirely so in terms of the status of those particular TRs we'll just need to square that off process wise. But yes I can confirm we do not consider that we are legally obligated to offer them to any other providers. Obviously this doesn't mean we can't offer them to other providers but you are correct that we are not obligated to do so. Just FYI we will most likely offer the non-CBD car parks that you've said you don't want to other car share providers as we've spent quite a bit of resource on the TR process so it would be a shame if they went nowhere. This won’t impact the 30 CBD parks 3-year cap (and is well below the 70 parks across the rest of the City 3-year cap) so won’t affect your other requests. 

In terms of your wish to get cars down in June versus November - we are limited in how much we can truncate the TR process. There is a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes and Tom can run through that process with you this afternoon. We've looked to where we can truncate timeframes but at best we're talking a matter of weeks not months. Also bear in mind that our traffic team deals with large numbers of traffic resolutions and every applicant sees their particular project as being critically important and in need of prioritisation or a dedicated process (and the September 14 meeting is actually already a special process). In saying that they’ve been really great lately in accommodating last minute changes to committee papers etc which has been really helpful.

 

I would strongly reject your assertion that you have had no fit for purpose car parks offered to you by the Council. I was under the impression that the six waterfront sites we've given you were operating well. If not then please let me know as we have plenty of demand for waterfront access and I certainly don't want to keep you locked into car parks that aren't working. In terms of the on-street parks as far as I'm aware 12 of the 21 traffic resolutions that you asked to be put on hold are for parks that are shovel ready and we could send to the next committee meeting and get started on right away.

 

And while I could list all the admirable qualities I think we've displayed as well I actually don't think it's a problem, or even unusual, that we haven't always agreed on everything. There's been mutual frustration on both sides from time to time - it hasn't been all sweetness and light. But nor should it be. You're behaving exactly as I would expect a small start-up business trying to extract the best deal possible out of Council to behave, and in turn I hope you would appreciate that we have many competing demands to balance both within our team and as a Council and are reacting accordingly. Demands for public space are constant right across Council and we are mere custodians of that space on behalf of the City and I personally take that responsibility very seriously. That is why I have been grateful that you have up till now been prepared to work with us to find spaces that meet that mutual balance. "Fit for purpose" cannot mean you simply get every site you ask for without us questioning the impact on other users on or near that site and the cost to Council of doing so. 

 

And yes you are a small business, as are all the car share providers that we are working with, and we want to reduce the costs to you as much as possible. But please remember that we are also a very small team with far fewer resources than people assume. We have committed a disproportionate amount of those resources (human, financial, and personal capital) on this venture because we believe in it so strongly and we will continue to do so. As an example we were happy to cover the $17k cost to get the last round of TRs drafted but that took quite a chunk out of what's left of my budget and so when you say you now no longer want those sites it makes it much harder for me to justify covering the cost of the next round of TRs (which again will have to be contracted out in order to meet the June 30 deadline). 

 

I'd be interested to know when you consulted on your budget with WE and how those discussions played out? I assume it was before your EECA application was lodged so you could include those costs? It would be really helpful from our perspective to have more information about those discussions. Bear in mind we have no idea where WEs 400V cables are so we were/are relying on you to factor the requisite infrastructure requirements into your due diligence as we have done with all our EV partners. If you have a map of where they are that would be enormously helpful! And I totally understand trenching adds to your costs but that also needs to be viewed against of the cost of getting new TRs drafted by 30 June for new sites vs taking the ones we've already consulted on for you and paid for. 

 

I can see that I have more emails from you guys so maybe some of this stuff has been covered off already! In any case we can talk this afternoon but hopefully this helps set the context from our perspective.

 

M.

 

Sent from my iPad

 

 

Moana Mackey Sustainability Manager Strategy Policy and Research Wellington City Council | Me Heke ki Pōneke  M 021 227 8317 E [email address] | W Wellington.govt.nz | |

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From: Erik Zydervelt [mailto:[email address]]
Sent: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 1:55 p.m.
To: Moana Mackey
Cc: Tom Pettit; Finn Lawrence
Subject: Re: New Mevo Traffic Resolutions