TDC to review pensioner housing
Tasman District Council is about to review its role as a provider of community housing.
The council has 101 housing units across the district, which are generally for older people with limited financial assets.
News of the Tasman council housing review comes as Nelson City Council investigates the potential sale of its 142 units and Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford reiterates pre-election comments that councils are well placed to provide affordable public housing for their communities.
"I encourage councils to continue their discussions with officials about providing housing in their local communities, especially with HUD [the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development]," Twyford said.
Reference to the Tasman council housing review appears in the TDC’s proposed age-friendly policy that is due to go out for public consultation from November 9 to January 25. The matter sparked a discussion at the community development committee meeting on Thursday1 november where the proposed age-friendly policy was approved for consultation.
Cr Dana Wensley said the reference to the housing review was added to the proposed agefriendly policy "because I actually wanted us to step up a bit in terms of community housing".
"The way it reads at the moment, it does look a little bit like we might be looking at going down the Nelson City Council track of divesting and that wasn’t the intention," Wensley said.
Her recollection from workshops "was that the review was going to be looking at an audit of what we have and [whether] it’s fit for purpose, not looking at possible divesting".
"I want to make sure we’re all on the same page with that."
However, some of the other elected representatives outlined a different understanding of the scope of the housing review.
Deputy mayor Tim King said he understood it "was relatively broad, covering all the options".
Reserves and facilities manager Richard Hollier said the planned scope was a "full review, which covered whether we’re in the business or not as well as levels of service and so on". A project brief was being prepared and the review would get under way during November, he said.
Wensley said she believed "there was no instruction for staff to look at going down that channel of divesting".
King said he recalled there was the potential to ask staff to come back with a report on divestment specifically.
"The decision was: ’No, we don’t want that’," King said. "However, the quid pro quo ... was that we get an overall review back that considers all the options."
After the meeting, Wensley said housing affordability and home ownership were going to be growing issues.
"We currently make a small dividend off our community housing and I would personally like to see that targeted at growing our community housing and explore partnerships with other organisations such as Abbeyfield or the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust," she said. "In my view, it would be negligent for us to turn a blind eye to the fact that there is a significant housing gap in our community that is not being met by central Government."
Twyford said the Government recognised how the "housing crisis" had affected older people.
"There is work under way to see how we can better support councils and community housing providers to increase the number of homes for older New Zealanders," he said.
The Government was building 6400 more houses over the next four years of which a "significant number" would be one-bedroom homes, which were more suitable for older people.
"In Nelson city, 80 additional public housing places will be made available," Twyford said. "In addition, another 30 public housing places are going to be in the Tasman district. [The ministry] will be working with community housing providers, Housing NZ and councils to make this happen, and to build more if we can."
The Government would also look "in the future" at extending the income-related rent subsidy to councils, Twyford said.