29 June 2021
Matthew Hooton
By email: [FYI request #15615 email]
City Rail Link (CRL) – Official Information Act Request
We refer to our correspondence of 9 June 2021 in relation to your LGOIMA request to Auckland Council and
the Minister of Finance with respect to the “costs of securing subsurface rights for the City Rail Link”.
Partial Transfer
City Rail Link Limited was formed on 1 July 2017 to deliver the Project which previously sat with Auckland
Transport. Accordingly, we have transferred parts of this request to Auckland Transport insofar as they relate
to information held for the period prior to 1 July 2017. We note that this partial Transfer only relates to Items
1 and 2 below:
1.
The total cost already paid or agreed to be paid by CRLL for subsurface rights, up until 11.59pm on
28 May 2021.
2.
The total costs paid by CRLL for consultants and other external providers in relation to 1 above.
3.
CRLL's total cost estimate of further subsurface rights, beyond those covered by 1 above, to allow
the completion of the project.
4.
CRLL's total cost estimate for consultants and other external providers in relation to 3 above.
Notwithstanding this transfer, we confirm that we will liaise directly with Auckland Transport to provide you
with a combined response to your Official Information Act/LGOIMA request where possible.
Decision
The OIA requires that we advise you of our decision on your request no later than 20 working days after the
day we received your request. Please see our decision with respect to each Item below.
Item 1:
The total cost already paid or agreed to be paid by CRLL for subsurface rights, up until
11.59pm on 28 May 2021.
Response:
We agree to release information in relation to Item 1. However, we do not hold it in the format
requested and it wil take us some time to collate this information.
We are in the process of gathering, reviewing and verifying the information which we will send
to you within 10 working days.
City Rail Link Ltd - Level 2, 25 Teed Street, Newmarket, Auckland 1023 | PO Box 9681, Newmarket, Auckland 1149, New Zealand
This information will include the total paid, or agreed to be paid, for subsurface rights
including payments in accordance with Sections 62 and 72C of the Public Works Act.
Please note the information provided in response to this Item will also include landowners’
consultants’ costs which have been reimbursed under Sections 66 and 76 of the Public Works
Act.
Item 2:
The total costs paid by CRLL for consultants and other external providers in relation to 1
above
Response:
We agree to release information in relation to Item 2. However, the information does not exist
as requested and wil need to be extracted from a number of sources of financial records. For
context, CRLL engages suppliers across multiple areas of the project, and it will take some time
to identify and separate out the work carried out specific to the acquisition of subsurface
rights back to 2013 so originated with Auckland Transport.
We are in the process of gathering all of the information and at this preliminary stage, advise
that there are substantial financial records to review, verify and collate, to respond to your
query given the number of properties, technical reports to inform negotiations and length of
time that this request relates to. Additionally, we will also need to undertake a verification
process with Auckland Transport to ensure that there has been no double counting of financial
records and that the information we provide is complete.
Due to the substantial administrative burden in responding to this request in the way asked,
we have decided to charge for making the requested information available.
We estimate that the maximum charge wil be $2,242 taking account of public interest and
calculated as follows:
Quantity Price
Total
Labour:
60 hours
$38/half
$2,242
- Search and retrieval
hour,
- Research (reading and reviewing to identify the
with the
information)
first hour
- Collation
free
- Peer review to ensure that these tasks have been
carried our correctly including verification process
with Auckland Transport
Any unused component of the maximum charge wil be refunded to you. Before we proceed
further with your request, please confirm your agreement to the charge and we can send you
an invoice. We wil send you the information within 20 working days of receipt of the payment.
We are happy to talk to you about the consultants engaged for the subsurface acquisition
programme to see if the purpose for which you seek the information can be responded to in
a different manner to either reduce or entirely mitigate the need for a charge.
City Rail Link Ltd - Level 2, 25 Teed Street, Newmarket, Auckland 1023 | PO Box 9681, Newmarket, Auckland 1149, New Zealand
Items 3 and 4: CRLL's total cost estimate of further subsurface rights, beyond those covered by 1
above, to al ow the completion of the project
CRLL's total cost estimate for consultants and other external providers in relation to
3 above
Response:
We do not hold an estimate to respond to Items 3 and 4 in full.
There two categories of subsurface rights where compensation has not yet been fully
determined. These groups are as fol ows:
1. The first where land has been acquired or defined but compensation is stil outstanding.
This includes properties which have been acquired by Advance Compensation agreements
or proclamation, as well as subsurface rights which are outstanding.
2. The second involves land required that is still subject to evaluations of the final tunnel
position. We have not sought estimates of the professional fees to estimate the
compensation yet - that figure could be estimated after we receive and review the results
of the volumetric definition.
We can provide you with the estimate for the first group within 10 working days.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of the above decisions. Information
about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss any of the above with us, please contact us at
[email address].
Yours sincerely,
Rick Galli
Head of Property
City Rail Link Ltd - Level 2, 25 Teed Street, Newmarket, Auckland 1023 | PO Box 9681, Newmarket, Auckland 1149, New Zealand
