Perhaps not much, given the stated cost of $15,000 — a mere 3% of chief executive Sandy Graham’s nearly $500,000 salary package. Chump change, some might say.
Civis disagrees. The council might as well take $15,000 in cash and burn it in the Octagon.
A 1.8km stretch of road through the Town Belt has been closed for a three-month trial, running until April 19, to create a pedestrian and cycling area.
The plan includes space for food trucks and designated areas for activities such as yoga and table tennis.
The council says "the trial will test how changes along Queens Dr could help achieve the following outcomes: promote transport safety, encourage walking and cycling, reduce illegal parking and rubbish dumping, and support zero carbon outcomes."
These read more like broad aspirations than outcomes the trial is likely to demonstrate.
The parks and recreation planner wrote that the change "creates immense recreation and amenity value in its own right, transforming the Town Belt from a highway that divides, into a destination that connects".
Yet a council report concedes the temporary closure is expected to have only a minor impact on transport.
Large numbers of cars use the main roads that cut across the Town Belt, but relatively few take the traditional "scenic drive" or the quieter byways.
A peaceful walk is still possible even when shared with occasional vehicles, and Dunedin is already blessed with abundant bush and garden walks free of cars. There are also sealed and unsealed bush tracks scattered through the Town Belt.
Councillors’ views on such matters should not be driven by reflex pro- or anti-car sentiment. Yet several fall firmly into one camp or the other, making a dispassionate assessment unlikely.
The $15,000 covers the hard costs of the trial — signs, monitoring, line marking and shifting planter boxes.
On top of that come the planner’s time, reports, reviews of those reports, consultation, the trial review, further reports, council meetings and councillors’ and senior staff time.
Bureaucracy has a reliable way of escalating expenses.
There are many better uses for $15,000, if it has to be spent at all.
Only four councillors, including the late Jules Radich, voted against the trial in December. Are the rest truly serious about minimising rate increases?
Councillors should not bring progress to a halt. The city is more than pipes, drains, roads and rubbish, even if those consume most capital and operational spending.
A few carefully chosen "nice-to-haves" are still needed, but councillors must be hard-headed, even when room to move is limited.
Pennies add up to pounds, and small costs still matter.
It’s much like a household where housing and food dominate the budget. Extra coffees or bought lunches seem trivial by comparison.
Yet those small outlays must still be rationed if the household is to stay afloat. Councils require the same discipline.
Last week, Ms Graham warned councillors about the potential impact of the government-proposed rate capping on capital spending.
Rising debt-servicing costs would make caps even harder to meet.
One councillor noted that half of the council’s capital expenditure goes to Three Waters and a quarter to roading and footpaths.
That clearly limits other capital works. While other work should not stop, the number and scope of additional projects will be heavily constrained.
Councillors should also recognise the wide public support for rate caps, even if blanket caps are short-sighted, given the massive Three Waters burden.
It makes sense to exclude those costs from a rate cap.
The 10 councillors who supported the Town Belt trial may have viewed it as a sliver against the total spend.
But even slivers mount up.
