More time considered for landlords to comply

Healthy Homes extension tipped to be revealed next week

The Government has confirmed an extension is being considered for all landlords, including private rentals and Kaīnga Ora, to meet minimum Healthy Homes standards.

On Thursday, under questioning in the House from the Act Party, the Government confirmed an extension for the state landlord to meet its deadline was “under active Cabinet consideration”.

A spokeswoman from Minister of Housing Megan Woods’ office confirmed the extension was being considered for the private sector also.

Kaīnga Ora and registered community housing providers have until July 1 next year to ensure its 65,000 public homes covered by the standards meet the requirements, including minimum levels of heating, insulation and ventilation.

The private sector has been required to meet the standards within

90 days of any new or renewed tenancy from July last year. This has excluded those on long-term tenancies or properties meeting certain conditions.

All rentals must meet the standards by July 1, 2024.

The spokeswoman confirmed to the Weekend Herald extensions were being considered not only for Kaīnga Ora’s deadline next year but the 2024 deadline covering all properties including the private sector. This was to account for disruptions due to Covid19 and supply-chain issues, which Kaīnga Ora says set back its renovation programme by six months.

It is understood an announcement is coming next week.

Kaīnga Ora has been under pressure over the rate at which it has been renovating its properties, many of those home to some of the country’s most vulnerable residents, with its programme not immune to Covid restrictions and supply issues hitting the wider building industry.

In July last year, just one in five met the standards. In July this year, it was up to just over 50 per cent.

Kaīnga Ora maintenance contracting and asset services director Andrew Booker said 68 per cent of its properties now met the standards — 43,775 homes. Just over 10,600 were currently being renovated.

This meant 84 per cent of its homes either met the Healthy Homes Standards or had work in progress.

The delivery rate had increased from 180 homes a week in June last year to 600 a week in October 2022.

However, even at that high rate, the figures indicated Kaīnga Ora would miss its target by several thousand properties.

Booker did not directly answer whether it was committed to the July

1, 2023, deadline, but that it was “committed to completing the work as quickly as possible”.

He said the programme started in December 2019, just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

About 950,000 hours of work would be required to meet the standards, but Covid restrictions meant it lost about 240,000 of those hours.

In the House on Thursday, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, speaking in place of Woods, said after questions about Ka¯inga Ora that an extension was “under active Cabinet consideration”. It followed Act deputy leader Brooke van Velden saying she’d been leaked information to suggest an extension would be announced next week.

“We’ve heard from landlords that there have been challenges across the sector in complying with the healthy homes standards,” Sepuloni said.

“Covid-19 did create delays with labour shortages, issues accessing tenants’ homes, and supply chain problems for products like heat pumps and insulation materials.

Thatis... under active Cabinet consideration. Minister Carmel Sepuloni

“We want to be pragmatic about our response to this, but that is currently under active Cabinet consideration, and so I cannot pre-empt a Cabinet decision.”

Inspection company All Clear Group NZ’s co-founder Adam Gordon told the Weekend Herald the private sector was “well on its way” to meeting standards.

Gordon said 63 per cent of the properties it assessed fully complied with the Healthy Homes standards. It covered about 15 per cent of the professionally managed private rental market of about 200,000 homes.

Gordon said the proportion was growing as tenancies were renewed.

Speaking for the professionally managed private rental market, Gordon said there were high levels of compliance and understanding about why the changes were needed.

However, he said there was understood to be lower compliance in the independent landlord sector, which made up the bulk of about 680,000 private rentals.

While all private rentals must now comply within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy, the Government is not collecting data on how many rentals are compliant with its Healthy Homes standards. It also does not require third parties to assess if properties meet the standards.

The Green Party has been advocating for a Warrant of Fitness to ensure rental homes are meeting standards and a register of landlords and property managers.