Residents on edge over social housing
‘No robust evidence' Kā inga Ora activities impact house prices
There is “no robust evidence” Kāinga Ora activities impact house prices in surrounding areas, a leader in the state housing agency says. But a Rotorua councillor disagrees, referencing locals’ “terrible, sad and upsetting stories” and offering to arrange for property experts to take the agency “through the evidence”.
The exchange came as representatives of the country’s biggest landlord addressed Rotorua Lakes Council’s Community and District Development Committee on Wednesday.
Kāinga Ora had about 900 homes in Rotorua and is making a major push to build more with 500 homes in the pipeline for 2024/25 – twothirds of those new builds. The scale of the building programme had some residents fearing Rotorua becoming the “social housing capital of New Zealand”, councillor Don Paterson said.
Kā inga Ora deputy chief executive, Central, Daniel Soughtton told the meeting a lower proportion (about 2.5 per cent) of Rotorua’s housing was publicly owned compared to the national average of 4 per cent.
“The large build you are seeing right now in your community is helping this community catch up to where other places are.”
He also said there was “no robust evidence” Kāinga Ora activity impacted the housing market “in terms of prices”. “There is actually a positive effect. Where we have been upgrading and growing our housing as part of the Canterbury recovery following the earthquake, the surrounding areas actually did better in terms of property prices compared to those that didn’t have that level of investment.”
Councillor Conan O’brien said the
robust evidence councillors had was from living in Rotorua.
“We accept the emails, we listen to our constituents, we get the phone calls. We listen to some very terrible, sad and upsetting stories by people affected by some of the things you
People think the only building that is going on here is
community housing … they are
worried we are being turned into, the term that is being bandied about, the social housing capital of
New Zealand.
councillor Don Paterson
are not directly responsible for, I respect that. Personal behaviour is personal responsibility.”
O’brien said he would be happy to organise a meeting for Kāinga Ora to hear from local real estate agents and rental agencies to talk them “through the evidence”.
Zero forced evictions
Kāinga Ora Bay of Plenty regional director Darren Toy said in the last six months 38 households in Rotorua had been “causing us a bit of grief”.
Complaints varied from noise issues, property care and disruptive behaviour. Toy said most were resolved with communication and formal meetings while more serious
issues followed the Residential
Tenancies Act process.
He said it was “actively issuing breach notices” but had not forced any evictions from Kāinga Ora or other properties in the past two years.
“We have had some moved on after discussions with them,” Toy said. “Without having to formally evict them.”
O’brien said he believed some people impacted by poor Kāinga Ora tenant behaviour no longer complained to the council because they were “numb” to the issues. $240m investment
Toy said the agency would invest $240 million in Rotorua in the 2024/25 year.
“We are targeting locals. Local subcontractors, local builders, local suppliers.”
There were no confirmed housing growth plans past that year until the Government-commissioned independent review of Kāinga Ora was complete.
This was expected by the end of the month.
Given the number of projects happening in Rotorua, it was taking a city-wide approach to community engagement rather than project-byproject.
A map of all developments in the city could be viewed on its website. Paterson, who instigated inviting the agency to the meeting, said he believed the number of builds contributed to a community perception.
“The whole rationale behind this [meeting] was to try and put these perceptions behind us so we can move on … a fair amount of [the perceptions] are just, because of what they have gone through.”
“People think the only building that is going on here is community housing … they are worried we are being turned into, the term that is being bandied about, the social housing capital of New Zealand.”
Paterson said while this was unfair, that was the perception.
Council district development general manager Jean-paul Gaston about half the consents coming to council were for government-assisted builds.
He said bringing the city up to the national average of public housing was “quite important”.
Rotorua had about 1.5 per cent of the country’s population, 2.5 per cent of beneficiaries and 3.3 per cent of the housing register.
Rotorua’s higher unemployment and socioeconomic positioning drove housing need, he said.
— LDR is local body journalism cofunded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Laura Smith is a Local Democracy
Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. She previously reported general news for the Otago Daily Times and Southland Express, and has been a journalist for four
years.