Stranded in paradise
Tiny campground cabins high above Queenstown have been home to a small army of migrant workers for more than a decade. Now they face homelessness as the council looks to clear the cabins to make way for a $1 billion development. Jo Mckenzie-mclean reports
Maria Silva grimaces as she repositions herself on a stool in her kitchen. Her hands are pulled behind her as she massages her injured back. She can’t get comfortable and moves about a metre to her bed beside the fridge, against a white-painted brick wall.
The 52-year-old Brazilian hotel cook keeps a tidy home – a cabin at the Lakeview Holiday Park in Queenstown, where she has lived for the past 10 years. It wasn’t always that way.
When she moved into the cabin it was disgusting, she says, but over the years she has saved her $21-an-hour wage to cover the carpet with tiles, replace the benchtops and joinery and put in a new bathroom. It’s small, but it’s home. Or was home.
In less than two months she will be evicted, as will residents of more than 50 other cabins, to make way for a $1 billion commercial, residential and hotel development that will eventually house about 1500 people in a town that desperately needs more housing.
Josara Santos, a 56-year-old Brazilian, walks through the door. She has walked home from a shift as a cleaner on minimum wage at a large hotel in the central business district.
She has lived for six years in a cabin behind Silva’s, which she shares with three other people so she can afford the cabin’s rent of $450 a week. In two months, she too will be homeless.
Silva, who is on an open visa and hopes to apply for residency, says the two women have not only made Queenstown home, but their visa restrictions mean they have to remain in the region for their hospitality jobs.
Two doors down from Santos are Sapumal Wijenayake, of Sri Lanka, and Loc Dang, of Vietnam. They have two other housemates who share the onebedroom $450 weekly rental. A shabby curtain divides the kitchen area and a lounge that has been turned into a bedroom. Ripped curtains hang from a broken window that bangs open in the wind.
Rubbish has been piling up in the corner of the kitchen because the tenants’ recycling bins have been removed. They now have to carry their rubbish to a single skip located away from the cabins.
From their second-storey cabin, Wijenayake and Dang can get glimpses of tourists cutting their way through the park on their way to the Skyline Gondola. Overhead, tourists parachute over the derelict cabins, their few hours of exhilaration costing close to a week’s rent for the migrant tenants. Helicopters chop overhead taking tourists to skifields or carrying secret celebrity cargo to private resorts.
The camping ground, like the workers, is on the outer. The cabins look down on a bustling rabbit warren of wealth, within arm’s reach of luxury hotels and multimillion-dollar homes.
Loc is one of the ‘‘lucky’’ ones living in the holiday park. He applied through a tenant accommodation assessment to be rehomed in another cabin that was not being immediately removed and was accepted. His friend was not so lucky.
Wijenayake was in a coma for three weeks in Dunedin Hospital after being assaulted when the tenants got a 90-day eviction notice left on their doorstep. His friend tried to apply for rehoming on his behalf, but was unsuccessful.
The restaurant worker, who arrived in New Zealand in 2011, cannot drive because of his head injuries, and does not know where he will go in October.
‘‘I am really lost, to be honest . . . Everyone is struggling to find accommodation. Everybody is applying. It’s hard. It’s a really terrible feeling because we have nowhere else to go.
‘‘I have not been able to drive for six months after I got beaten up. If I moved away I would struggle with transport.
‘‘We are on low incomes. This is the only affordable place . . . it is cramped, but we have to do it to survive.’’
He made Queenstown his home after completing hospitality qualifications, gaining employment and renewing his three-year working visa. He fears that if he cannot find a house he will have to return to Sri Lanka.
‘‘I really can’t go back . . . My dream was to get residency and bring my wife here and settle down with my unborn baby.
‘‘But this could ruin my whole dream. It’s really getting frustrating and upsetting.’’
A BETTER LIFE
The tenants feel helpless. They came to New Zealand for a better life. Some, like Pablo Coelho, are now questioning how much better it really is.
‘‘We do the jobs many people don’t want to do . . . we are the cleaners, the chefs, the waiters
. . . we are the people who keep the town going and running.’’
He does not feel the eviction notice was fair on those on low wages who had made the cabins their home for many years.
‘‘We try to live in a town that’s not cheap to live but I don’t see any consideration or help from anyone to help us find a place to live.’’
Coelho fears some people will end up on the streets. ‘‘We have two months to go and we have no idea where to find a place to live.’’
Many tenants are scared to speak out for fear of jeopardising their visas. Others face language barriers.
‘‘About 80 to 90 per cent here are immigrants. Many people don’t know what to do. They are scared of what can happen to them if they can’t find a house.
‘‘Queenstown is a beautiful town but the classes here are very separated. You can find beautiful mansions on top of hills, people with a lot of money, but we are also people living here.
‘‘We are not rich, we are not millionaires, but we are people who do the jobs.’’
LONG-TERM BENEFITS
Queenstown Lakes District Council says it does not have figures for how many people would be affected by the evictions, but confirms 55 cabins will be cleared.
Another 30 cabins will remain where they are and 36 will be moved to new sites within the holiday park in November. Some tenants have been rehomed in cabins in areas that are not immediately being developed.
Redevelopment of the Lakeview campground has been considered for more than a decade. Many of the homes there are no longer fit for purpose, and have not been for many years, the council says.
It is working with the Ministry of Social Development, the Community Housing Trust and Harcourts to find new homes for those affected. It is also developing a homes strategy for the community.
Council chief executive Mike Theelan says the redevelopment of the site will benefit the whole region.
The council revealed plans for the 10.4-hectare site in April, which included commercial, residential and hotel development. It has entered into negotiations with a consortium that will deliver the $1b project – Melbourne-based developer Ninety-four Feet, Aucklandbased investment company Augusta Capital and the Britomart Hospitality Group.
‘‘We understand it has been a sensitive process, but we have endeavoured to provide outcomes that work for everybody involved.’’
Ultimately the new development will provide housing for 1500 people, against the 300 currently living in the park, Theelan says.
‘‘The decision remains a tough one, but the end result will offer significantly more for the community than it does today.’’
Ministry of Social Development regional director Sue Rissman says it has helped some of the people being evicted
through its housing assesment process. ‘‘A small number of those people met the requirements for public housing. We’re here to offer all available support to anyone affected.’’
Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust executive officer Julie Scott says it placed several previous Lakeview and Frankton camping ground tenant households into trustowned properties over the past 24 months.
‘‘QLCHT has a contract to buy 50 one and two-bed apartments in Frankton, which may help some people, but they won’t be ready until early 2021.
‘‘Council has also agreed to transfer some council-owned land in Arrowtown across to us, which will enable us to build 65 homes, but again this is a couple of years away.’’
The tenants spoken to by Stuff say they have received no assistance.
Salvation Army’s Hine Marchand says it has provided some emotional and practical support. ‘‘I had one in who has a dog. He has a job but can’t find a place.’’
The campsite’s closure has raised pressure on Queenstown accommodation ‘‘to another level’’.
‘‘I have two new [clients] sleeping rough outside for the past two months in this cold. It’s very sad. We are very underresourced here.’’
UNAFFORDABLE HOMES
Independent economist Benje Patterson says job numbers rose 7.1 per cent across the Queenstown Lakes region in 2018 to 28,000, just below the average job growth of 8 per cent annually over the past five years.
Queenstown’s population is also growing rapidly, ‘‘but has slowed recently as the district becomes increasingly unaffordable to workers’’.
In 2018, the average house in Queenstown Lakes District was worth 20 times the average income, he says. Five years ago, this ratio was 14.
Nationally, the average house is worth about 10 times the average income.
The average Queenstown rent in 2018 soaked up 51 per cent of income, while five years ago it was 40 per cent. By comparison, rents nationally are about onethird of income.
Statistics New Zealand estimates population growth across Queenstown Lakes District was 5.7 per cent in 2018, down from 6.9 in 2017.
Part of this growth is in townships outside Queenstown, with a commuter belt forming.
The population of Cromwell expanded by 6 per cent in 2018, while Kingston’s increased by 7.4 per cent.
Hundreds are now commuting daily to Queenstown for work. The 2013 census showed 6.7 per cent of Cromwell’s working-age population commuted to Queenstown, while one in four Kingston workers travelled into the city.
‘‘Both Kingston and Cromwell have significant pipelines of residential development ahead of them, which could lead to further commuter traffic from Kingston and Cromwell to Queenstown,’’ Patterson says. ‘‘In the case of Cromwell, there
are significant emerging local employment options, but job prospects in Kingston are few and far between.’’
Data also shows residents are increasingly moving out of Queenstown and into Central Otago. ‘‘Over the four years to 2017, there were net losses of 198 people from Queenstown Lakes to Central Otago, with 96 of these people moving in 2017 alone.’’
Queenstown-based Hospitality New Zealand board member Chris Buckley says finding affordable housing for the workforce is tough and a solution appears to be ‘‘a long way down the road’’.
‘‘It’s so hard . . . We have always had issues with accommodation, ever since I have been here, which is over 12 years. It’s always been tough and expensive.’’
Very few employers provide worker accommodation.
‘‘At the end of the day, for a smaller employer like myself, rents are going up, cost of goods are going up, employing people is going up, margins are tighter
. . . the money has to come from somewhere.
‘‘I don’t think employers have that sort of cash to buy a place in Queenstown to set up workers’ accommodation.’’
The rise of Airbnb and new healthy home standards have been ‘‘major disrupters’’ in the accommodation sector, he says.
‘‘It squeezes us into more of a situation where no-one can find a place to live. It gets tougher for staff, tougher on us. We have to figure out how to run with less staff, even though we are trying to operate well and service a big industry.’’