Strong words over
‘Exhausted’ community put heat on Ka¯ inga Ora director at public meeting
“The Glenholme community is exhausted . . . go back to your government departments and ministers and tell them we don’t want you here.”
That’s the message from a Glenholme resident who was backed by more than 400 locals in her calls to Ka¯inga Ora to leave the suburb alone and not allow more social housing in the area.
The residents packed the Arawa Bowling Club on Lytton St on Monday night for a public meeting organised by Save Glenholme Group called by locals to express concerns to Ka¯inga Ora Bay of Plenty regional director Darren Toy about a planned housing development on a vacant section of land at 54 Devon St.
The other topic discussed was the Rotorua Lakes Council’s Plan Change 9 proposal — a move to allow building intensification that could see buildings up to six storeys high.
Resident Carolyne Hall received huge applause when she said Glenholme had suffered a triple whammy and residents were tired of fighting the effects of emergency housing, Devon St plans and now Plan Change 9.
Monday night was the first time Ka¯inga Ora officials had come faceto-face with a local crowd and even Toy commented it was “brave” of him to attend the meeting.
He started by saying he would take everyone’s concerns on board.
“I have a blank page and open ears and thank you for engaging.”
Toy said he didn’t yet know what the plans were for 54 Devon St as the design team would present the options in about a week.
Ka¯inga Ora’s letter drop earlier in the year initially said six two-storey homes were being considered — four two-bedroom terrace homes and two three-bedroom duplexes. Toy then said last week at least three homes were being considered. On Monday night he put to bed any possibility they could be three storeys high, saying that could not fit on the site.
When asked if Ka¯inga Ora had got a geotechnical report, given the land’s close promiximity to previous bores and other possible land stability issues, Toy said no.
One woman questioned how they could come up with a proposal next week when such a report on the land hadn’t been done: “You might find you are limited to one house. Surely when you are buying land you do your homework first.”
Toy tried to reassure residents that interviews were held to find good tenants and a “vast majority” of those in Ka¯inga Ora homes were good people.
But Rotorua MP Todd Mcclay, who helped chair the meeting with former Rotorua Lakes councillor Raj Kumar, said with all due respect to Toy, it only took a Google search to realise Ka¯ inga Ora was not a good landlord based on horror stories from around NZ.
A resident spoke about how she was aged 52 and had “worked her butt off” to afford to buy a house in Glenholme: “I’ve heard people say ‘they deserve to live here too’. No one deserves anything. We earn what we have.”
She said Rotorua’s supposed population growth that caused the homeless crisis was a “myth”.
“It has been from people being given MSD vouchers. You live here for 30 days and you are accounted as someone who is from here. My advice is give the vouchers back and go home.”
A local woman asked how people were going to cope going from a motel to a Ka¯inga Ora home.
Toy asked Wera Aotearoa Charitable Trust housing operations manager Toli Maka to answer. Maka spoke about her trust’s work with wraparound services and how it involved a “holistic approach”.
“Ultimately we aim to help them thrive . . . Our relationship with Ka¯inga Ora is when they are considered rent-ready we work with them to continue the support needs.”
Her words were met with mutterings from the crowd.
Two people spoke about the
Malfroy Rd and Ranolf St Ka¯inga Ora development and how, in their opinion, it already looked bad with homes close to the road and no parking available, resulting in cars — which they said were unregistered and rough-looking — parked on the berms. One of them said Ka¯inga Ora set up the families for failure because residents ended up not liking them.
Another man said he was concerned about the high-rise buildings looking like “super slums” and asked, “what are we going to do when the tenants start acting up?”. To that comment, someone yelled out from the floor: “Oh, they will get the wraparound help in.”
There was concern expressed that council officials, mayor Tania Tapsell and deputy mayor Sandra Kai Fong weren’t at the meeting. Three newlyelected councillors were present —