They say you can’t beat Wellington on a good day but in one important respect, ‘they’ are wrong.
Christchurch will have Wellington beat, hands-down, unless Christchurch Council manages to screw this up.
Christchurch’s downtown Arts Centre wants to allow a lot more food carts.
Christchurch’s downtown restaurants, in highly anticompetitive fashion that in a better world would draw the Commerce Commission’s attention, are trying to block them.
It is a wonderful kind of problem to have, at least as viewed from Wellington.
Take the sunniest and calmest weekday you like. A day in which dining indoors would be almost sinful.
A food cart would be perfect.
Sitting along the waterfront for lunch, on a good day, is a slice of heaven.
If you walk along the waterfront starting at the Bluebridge Ferry Terminal, the first food cart is more than a kilometre away: a black shack that serves up excellent hamburgers, fish-burgers, and chips beside the old floating steam crane.
Another hundred metres or so around the corner you’ll find a cart selling churros – great for dessert, but not my pick as lunch.
And on a very good day, a cart just past the churros serves up superb beef rendang: either on noodles, or as a smash burger.
And you are not likely to find another one if you walk another kilometre out to Freyberg Pool.
Three food carts on a stretch of waterfront well over two kilometres long. On a good day. Some days, there are none.
Wellingtonians can read of Christchurch’s ‘problem’ with food carts with some envy.
Riverside Market owner Richard Peebles, who presented the petition against the food carts, said, “We’ve got several sites in this city that we’re looking at at the moment and you know, if it is an option to get 30 retail caravans down there rather than actually go through the resource and building consent process that’s probably an option.”
He added, “And it’s a lot cheaper for the operators without the rates burden.”
Peebles points to two very real problems here.
Consider the hypothetical site that Peebles refers to. The choice of whether to build a restaurant or retail shop on that piece of land, or to put a few carts on it, should depend on which option results in the best use of that space as evidenced by the return the land’s owner can expect. Any of those options could be the right answer.
But most councils, including Christchurch, assess rates based on land plus capital value rather than land alone. And many, including Christchurch, assess a punitive ratings differential on business use of land.
Even if everything else about a site meant it would be better as venue for a restaurant rather than food carts, the restaurant will be at a ratings disadvantage. The site with the building will attract a much heavier ratings burden than the land alone, or the land plus mobile carts.
Too often, when faced with what seems an uneven playing field, people lobby to make life worse for those perceived to have it easier.
Assessing council rates on land value alone, while abolishing the punitive ratings differential assessed on businesses, would be a better way of levelling that part of the playing field. The piece of land would pay the same amount in rates regardless of whether a restaurant, a shop, or some carts sat on it.
Similarly, radically easing consenting burdens would level the playing field while improving outcomes more generally. This week, results from the UK Growth Survey were released. 44 top UK economists were asked what their government should do to pursue growth. They overwhelmingly pointed to planning reform. We have the same problem.
Building a restaurant should be a simple by-right activity.
And letting food carts serve beer would remove a distortion that currently works in restaurants’ favour.
Christchurch Council should only reduce the subsidy it provides to the Arts Centre to the extent that having food carts reduces the value of the public amenity that the Centre provides. And really, food carts seem more likely to improve that amenity than impede it.
Christchurch’s problem then brings us back to Wellington’s puzzle. Food carts do not have to deal with resource and building consents, though they do need a food registration certificate. They enjoy a ratings advantage, and Wellington’s business ratings differential is even worse than Christchurch’s. And everywhere in Wellington’s downtown is a short walk from the waterfront. Christchurch is more dispersed.
So, on a good day, to steal a line from an old Australian tourism commercial, where the hell are the waterfront food carts?
To read the full article on The Post website, click here.