The regional stadium
Stadium Week, Part 3
One of the ideas that has been mooted to pay for the stadium is asking / forcing other surrounding councils to chip in. It makes sense - people across the wider Canterbury area would be using it, so why shouldn’t they pay. A regional levy (cough tax cough) was even suggested by some of the Labour city councillors as a way to raise some more funds. While I can see the sentiment, I think these are all terrible ideas, and I’ll tell you why.
First up, the regional levy, to be raised by ECan, was a very silly idea. It might be nice for the CCC councillors to try and pass the blame, and the cost, on to others, but the CCC is the one making this decision, and they have to be able to fund it. The idea that they would ask, or force, another council to levy their ratepayers to pay for something that they don’t own is ridiculous. I’m upset enough as a CCC ratepayer, and have made my views known. But imagine if you lived in Tinwald or Cheviot or Springfield, and opened your rates bill to find that you were paying for a stadium in Christchurch. Did you have a say in this decision? Do you own this stadium? Of course not. I realise that ECan has recently been operating under a “no taxation with out representation” model, but we shouldn’t be trying to go back to that.
The issue here really is Christchurch vs the satellite towns that are basically Christchurch but aren’t part of our rating base. It’s not a new issue, but it is a big one, and getting harder and harder to ignore. Is it time for us to SuperCity, bringing in Selwyn and Waimakariri into a Greater Christchurch council? Maybe. Or are we talking about just cleaving off the denser areas - Rolleston, Lincoln, Rangiora and Kaiapoi - and leaving the rest? If so, what happens to the rest? The SuperCity has largely worked well in Auckland, but they weren’t amalgamating councils that went from the Southern Alps to the sea. I think it is a discussion that needs to be had, but in the middle of a very low-information debate about the stadium, I don’t think it helps to toss in a very complicated curve-ball like this.
Finally, ECan shouldn’t be going anywhere near a stadium. It’s not part of their remit, at all. They are meant to look after our environment (it’s in the name) and they aren’t doing a particularly good job of that. ECan should be getting Canterbury moving, and that means some form of mass transit for the region. That will be expensive. When they do finally get their ass into gear, they shouldn’t be further burdened by debt for a stadium that they didn’t ask for, didn’t design, and don’t own.