Housing manager role slammed
Ratepayers forking out for council position a ‘disgrace’ say critics
"This isn’t a role the council should be paying money for."
Rotorua MP Todd Mcclay
Rotorua Lakes Council is advertising a new emergency housing job with a six-figure salary and critics say it is a “disgrace” ratepayers are being forced to pay for such a role.
The council’s role of emergency housing programme manager is advertised as a position that will manage the council’s “strategic programmes”.
The successful applicant will be paid between $108,886 and $128,101 and the role sits within the existing council headcount.
Council district development deputy chief executive Jean-paul Gaston said the role was part of the council’s project management office and would include supporting the council’s “thriving communities and emergency housing response actions”.
Gaston said the role would provide a project management and co-ordination lens to those areas.
Responsibilities include working with the central city priority area plan, locality plans, safety initiatives, motel regulatory action, land sales for housing supply, the housing hub and support services for those in emergency housing internally and with partners.
However, Restore Rotorua and Rotorua MP Todd Mcclay have come out against the job, saying Rotorua was suffering from having so much emergency housing and now ratepayers were being leaned on to help fund its management.
Restore Rotorua chairman Trevor Newbrook said his organisation wanted to know why the council was funding an emergency housing position.
“We are not only having to suffer what this Government is doing to our city, the effects intensive emergency housing is having on our lives, but we are now also having to pay through rates to manage it.
“More CCTV cameras, more security patrols, more maintenance, more staff and more costs to ratepayers. The Government has created this situation by . . . using motels in Rotorua for emergency housing and bringing more and more people here. They should be paying.”
Newbrook said Rotorua residents had been made vulnerable by the extent and cumulative effect of so much emergency housing clustered together.
“Many people are already struggling to pay their rates which have increased significantly over the last nine years. Now we are
expected to pay more. Enough is enough.”
Rotorua MP Todd Mcclay described having a specific position for emergency housing as “just crazy”.
He said more houses, not more bureaucrats, were needed.
“This isn’t a role the council should be paying money for.
In his view: “There is far too much money being wasted on this great big business called homeless motels in Rotorua and the council should be telling the Government to sort it out, not buying into Rotorua being made a dumping ground for the homeless problem.”
Mcclay said he believed it was a “disgrace” if ratepayer money was being spent on this salary.
Housing Minister Megan Woods reiterated to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend the millions of dollars being “poured” into Rotorua.
“To be clear, Rotorua has a chronic shortage of housing as a result of population growth and not enough housing being built.”
She said the Government had given $146 million from 2021 to 2026 for contracts delivering emergency housing and wrap-around support services and had set up Te Pokapu Housing Hub to help people find homes.
Woods said the Government had also recently announced nearly $85m for stormwater works to enable 3000 more houses in Rotorua as well as $55m to enable development from the shovelready fund on the east side of the city.
“We are adding nearly 400 public and transitional homes, with approximately 150 already delivered.”
Woods said this was in contrast to the National Government and suggested Mcclay should reflect on what he would do differently.
“Our Government has stepped in once again to fix a problem that National ignored.”
In response, Mcclay said in his view, Woods was out of touch with the reality of what was happening on the ground in Rotorua and had denied it was using Rotorua as a dumping ground for their homelessness problem.
“The Labour Government needs to announce that no more people will be sent to motels in Rotorua or moved from the region to Rotorua’s houses. Taupo¯ and Whakata¯ne is not Rotorua — the Government is letting local people down.”
Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick was asked to comment on the role, including whether she was aware of it, and if she believed it was the council’s role to manage emergency housing programmes and pay for it with ratepayers’ money.
Through the council’s communications department, Chadwick declined to comment saying it was an operational matter and “not something for the mayor to comment on”.
Applications for the role close on August 17.