Council’s emissions only make up 4% of the city-wide emissions in Lower Hutt. While the council is working towards a target of carbon zero, work also needs to be done to encourage the rest of Lower Hutt to be so too.
One area of emission reduction is through electric vehicles (EV’s). One of the restrictions for uptake is chargers either at home or out and about.
I would like to see HCC stipulate that all new construction has wiring for EV chargers installed. Not necessarily an EV charger installed, but simply the wire from the meter box to the logical charger location (garage, carport, etc). The cost to run this cable safety on an existing house is very expensive, and for people renting can be a prohibiter for uptake.
This would apply to both commercial & residential builds. It removes the high cost of wiring an existing building and allows the tenant to easily get a charger installed (at their own cost) and can easily be removed again when they move out.