Bader resident ‘in dark’ over new social housing proposal
Paea King is friends with some of her Kāinga Ora neighbours, but others have held noisy 4am weeknight parties or siphoned her petrol.
So the Bader resident of more than 50 years is worried about potential new faces when a new state housing development pops up over the fence.
Her son Charles is after more information, too. He lives in Tamahere, and has made multiple trips to check on his mum – and noise control complaints – after recent issues, including rubbish thrown over her fence.
The culprit was usually living in nearby Kāinga Ora housing, though the most difficult household has now moved on, and Paea has made friends with other neighbours in state homes.
Charles went to Kāinga Ora’s drop-in session this week to find out more about the new homes being proposed for Bader, but came away unsatisfied.
“I was asking information like when do the houses go live? When do people move in? And [the Kāinga Ora representative] didn’t know. He kept referring us to the website. He said possibly in the next three months. I’m thinking, ‘I’m here for information, and he’s telling us to go to the website’.”
Nor would the department answer questions from the Waikato Times . It was revealed later that 520 new Kāinga Ora homes are in the works this year in Hamilton, with 122 planned for Hamilton south.
Charles said his mother was originally a rent-to-own state housing tenant “back in the day”. Her street, Perry Place, is half Kāinga Ora and half privately owned.
Charles has made numerous noise complaints on Paea’s behalf, and in the end,there was a result – of sorts. “Kāinga Ora just gave them a new house. Because we complained, they just moved them. So that’s it, you play up, you get a new house.”
Paea still deals with the occasional ruckus, such as petrol siphoners who Charles caught on cameras he’d installed, but things have been a little better. She said she’d never blamed the Kāinga Ora residents, even when tensions were at their highest. “I said to Charles, ‘It’s not their fault. They’ve had a different upbringing’.”
However, both mother and son want more information about what comes next with the new homes being proposed, and the one being built next to Paea’s house.
It’s not the first time Charles has felt communication from Kāinga Ora was lacking. When he made complaints about Paea’s neighbours in the past, he often never heard back.
“I got a LGOIMA [Local Government Official Information Act] from the police about how many times they’ve been called out to these addresses [in the neighbourhood].
“There were heaps of armed offenders squads, discharging a firearm at the address, domestic abuse. Hamilton City Council noise complaints have had multiple callouts. I forwarded those to Kāinga Ora, and they didn’t even get back to me. They just call the neighbours and tell them we’ve complained, and then I get abuse.”
Earlier this year, it was announced that the Government had instructed Kāinga Ora to start evicting rowdy and troublesome tenants. It claimed Kāinga Ora received more than 300 complaints a month about its tenants.
Kāinga Ora Waikato regional director Mark Rawson said he couldn’t comment on Paea and Charles’ specific case for privacy reasons, but that Kāinga Ora did not expect anyone to put up with “awful situations”.
“Sometimes it can be hard to see what we are doing about a situation because we are limited in what we can publicly share under the Privacy Act, but we will be taking action.”