$2 million from central Government to prevent crime in Auckland will be distributed via business associations and without a crime frequency lens
Auckland councillors have elected to give half of a $2 million fund from central Government earmarked for crime to local boards and half to council-affiliated business association known as BIDs around the city.
The regulatory and safety committee met yesterday to discuss where the money should go and what models should determine how much money each child organisation receives.
Council officials suggested the fund could be put to good use paying for crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), an approach that includes lighting, limiting access, improving naturally-occurring public surveillance and beautifying public areas.
But while everybody around the committee table – along with local board representatives who came to present their input – agreed crime was an issue that needed to be dealt with, there was some discrepancy over how the money should be parcelled out.
The fund could either be given out using standard local district ratios, based on population, deprivation and land area, or it could use a ratio determined by recent crime statistics.
The committee went with the former, meaning local board areas on the top of council-published crime lists like Waitematā and Albert-Eden will be getting a smaller slice of the pie than they otherwise might have expected.
Albert-Eden local board chair Margi Watson was at the meeting to advocate for a quicker rollout for the fund at a regional level, which could bypass the need for local board ratios and allow local organisations to apply directly to council for funding.
But the council advocated for a community-led approach which puts the ball in local board and BIDs' courts.
Watson was disappointed by the committee’s decision, and said not using the crime data to tailor the distribution of the funds was a “missed opportunity”.
“It's not responsive to crime at all,” she said. “Plus there are areas without BIDs that won't get a look-in at all.”
She said neighbourhoods like Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier didn’t have an established business improvement district, which would cut them out of some funding.
Mayor Wayne Brown said this would encourage them to “get off their backsides” and form BIDs.
Watson countered that areas in her ward had found reaching the size needed to form a BID was an obstacle.
The council’s own policy on the programme reads: “When considering the viability of a new BID programme, the executive committee must be mindful the proposed BID programme boundary area is of a size and scale to achieve its goals.”
Potential coalitions of business and property owners have to stump up at least $120,000 per year before they can be granted the title of BID.
Brown later added that if communities were struggling to reach the threshold, they could reach out to businesses across a wider area.
And when it came to BIDs, the mayor had a bone to pick with those he said hadn’t spent amply on crime prevention.
“Those BIDs that have spent their money on crime prevention are down the list for crime,” he said. “Some of the areas which potentially you would think... are well down because they spend 40 percent of their money on crime prevention.”
The crime list he was referring to was data on total crime victimisations across ward areas in Auckland between February 2019 and January 2023.
The list had Waitematā head and shoulders above the other regions, with more than 50,000 victimisations over that period.
Brown said the CBD’s BID had over a million in unspent dollars they could have been using to make the city centre feel safer.
It’s not a new opinion of his – he and fellow mayoral candidate and business association head Viv Beck fired potshots on stage over this last year during the run-up to the election.
Brown compared his experience seeing successful BID investment in things like community patrols in Otāhuhu to his experience living in the central city.
“I've been through the system and it's surprising how much money some of them are putting aside,” he said at a campaign event last August. “The CBD one has got over $1.5 million dollars sitting in the bank, and you think – what have you got that for?”
Today he put his money where his mouth was, essentially penalising BIDs that hadn’t funded crime prevention, and areas of the city that didn't have their own BIDs.
“Sending it out according to the amount of crime that they’ve got is like sending out money to people who have chosen not to insure their houses,” he said. “They’ve chosen not to spend any money on prevention and shouldn’t be rewarded for that, they should be told: insure your house, create a BID.”
The region currently has 50 BIDs, which represent more than 25,000 businesses and have a combined capital value of around $7.2 billion.
The list of BIDs covers a significant number of the city’s town centres, from Orewa down to Pukekohe. But there are many that currently aren’t part of the scheme – areas like Sandringham, Pt Chevalier and mountains Eden, Roskill and Wellington.
Meanwhile, Henderson-Massey Local Board deputy chair Brooke Loader said her board unanimously supported the fund being allocated directly to local boards.
“We hold key relationships with the BIDs of which we have two, and we have our ear to the ground to how the funds can be allocated,” she said.
Committee chair Josephine Bartley said the two local board presentations were very distinct: “One is give us all the money and the other is don’t give us any money.”
So perhaps a clean million going out to those local boards and the other half to these council-affiliated business associations represents the councillors landing somewhere in the middle.
But when it came to the final vote, the decision to distribute the funds according to crime statistics or the usual population and deprivation data saw some disagreement around the committee table.
Brown remained keen for the crime data to be kept out of it, although said he didn’t want to “die in a ditch” over it.
His seconder, councillor Ken Turner, had initially supported the use of crime data but said he could be convinced otherwise. “This is like whether I have tea or coffee,” he said.
Eventually he sided with the Mayor, and despite it going against the advice of council officials, it was decided the policy be amended to not take the crime stats into account.
There was a lot of political shoe leather to chew through, but council officials warned that even with the right distribution, $2m wouldn't go far in tackling crime across the city.
Crime data from NZ Police indicates an increase in victimisations in the Auckland region in the range of 50-70 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, while retail crime has seen a significant increase during this time.
Watson paid tribute to the victims of three out-of-the-blue murders in her ward over the past 15 months: Tom Coombes, Lena Zhang Harrap and Janak Patel.
As the final result was declared, Brown brought the recently-murdered Patel into the conversation as a cautionary tale.
“What this highlights is the importance of getting into a BID,” he said, “Janak should have been in a BID.”
Committee chair Bartley stopped him: “That’s quite remote”, she said.
