Young and old forced to go
Residents booted from apartments to make way for Auckland’s new eastern busway
Young families and elderly residents with limited English skills are among Panmure residents being booted from their apartments to make way for Auckland Council’s new eastern busway.
The $1.2 billion Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative aims to speed up public transport times between the city and eastern suburbs by building dedicated bus lanes.
But the 22 Auckland Councilowned apartments on Basin View Lane are deemed to lie in the busway path and are marked for demolition. Residents were told by letter on June 1 they must vacate by September 2.
Yet for some elderly who have lived in the block for 30 years and now need mobility scooters to get around, finding new rentals won’t be easy. One couple have little English and others in the complex worry the pair may not even know they are being evicted, resident Geoff Kaye said.
He and his wife were having a tough time finding a new rental, despite hunting all last month.
“We’ve been to 27 viewings, they are all either too expensive or by the time we get there they’ve gone,” he said.
With so many families affected and rentals hard to find in Auckland’s fever-pitch housing market, the Panmure residents are asking Auckland Council to provide them with greater help and flexibility.
So far the complex’s property
HFor a video with this story see nzherald.co.nz manager had simply told the residents they must be out by September 2 or risk facing Tenancy Tribunal action, Kaye said. However, Ian Wheeler, portfolio management director for Panuku Development Auckland, a council offshoot managing about $2b of council land, said his team had been trying to help the tenants.
Panuku first contacted tenants about the AMETI project last September, before writing in January that it would issue a formal notice to vacate later, he said. Once notice to vacate came in June, a property manager kept in regular contact and put people in touch with agencies such as Housing NZ, Winz, Ministry of Social Development and real estate agents.
A list of tenants with special needs had been identified as needing extra support services, while Panuku was assessing whether some could be moved to vacant council-owned properties. Panuku also contacted the families of those who did not speak English as a first language.
But Kaye disputed this, saying residents had banded together and he had been writing to local MPs because the council had not been helping.
He understood the daughter of the elderly man who spoke little English lived overseas and residents were “almost certain he doesn’t know what is going on”.