Hutt political ticket slams the city's performance on housing

BY SIMON EDWARDS

If the city council is interested in serving residents' needs, it should start by building more council houses.

That's a main election policy plank of the Valley Action Network (VAN) ticket, which is standing three candidates: Grant Brookes (Eastern Ward), Michelle Ducat (Harbour) and Omar Hamed (Northern).

"Everyone needs a roof over their head [but] securing a home is more and more difficult," Mr Brookes says.

Banks are starting to lift home loan interest rates, there's pressure on rent due to property tax changes in the May Budget and the nation's jobless rate has leapt to 6.8 per cent.

The government-appointed Housing Shareholders Advisory Group came out with a report this month stating New Zealand has to move away from allowing state house tenants to stay in such accommodation for life.

The Government appeared to favour the sale of some stock, or at least vesting more of it in community-run organisations, and restricting state house use to families most in need.

Meanwhile 10,500 people are on state house waiting lists, including 375 families and individuals in the Hutt Valley.

Mr Brookes says even Hutt City Council's own housing policy highlights a potential shortfall of 1500 homes by 2025.

"Yet they have no realistic plan for how this housing need will be met.

"New vision is needed. We want an expanded programme of council house construction that will provide affordable homes for people who need them, create jobs and stimulate the local economy, while building up assets for the ratepayers."

Council has put its property dealings under a company structure, UrbanPlus.

The aim is to better utilise existing council land holdings and build up the number of units for the elderly and "socially disadvantaged" from the current 187 to 210 by 2013.

VAN says in the last year UrbanPlus increased the housing stock by just four new units.

But is the provision of social housing a central Government function?

"Some people say that," Mr Brookes says, "but it's a question of priorities. What better priority is there than making sure people have a roof over their heads? In the past it's been a priority here and it needs to be again."

As recently as 1997 the city council owned 600 flats, which were let at reduced rents to those in need. VAN says this helped keep rents down for everyone.

"But a rash privatisation programme from the late 1990s saw the flats sold off, along with most of the family silver."

Mr Brookes says the council of the day promised that the new landlord would be "socially responsible" and protect tenants for the "long term".

"But just three years after buying the 44 units in Britannia St in Petone, the new landlord sold them for a $2 million profit. All the tenants were evicted."

Wellington kept its 2300 council flats and  after long negotiation  extracted a $220 million cash injection from the government in 2007 to pay for housing upgrades.

"Ratepayers of Lower Hutt have now lost tens of millions of dollars due to our council's ideological belief in privatisation, as the increased value of former council assets has flowed instead to private owners and government funding opportunities have been missed," VAN claims.

Yet today's council will offer rates holidays and planning discounts to private developers, "like the one who wanted to build apartments on Daly St".

VAN's policy is to: FUBULLET<bell>BB for next bullet<B> Increase UrbanPlus' target for new houses from 210 by 2013 to 250 by 2013. Create a long term strategy to restore council housing to 600 units by 2023, creating 1,900 jobs.

They've costed this at a hefty $130 million  using the formula The Greens applied to its New Deal project. Mr Brookes points to the increased value to council assets, rental income and other revenue.

"The necessary capital to start building can be borrowed against the future asset."

Mayoral challenger Ray Wallace is heading into the election with a slate of Team Ray Wallace candidates for the Wainuiomata Community Board  Barry Campbell, Karl Dickson, David Elliot, Terry Stallworth, Margaret Willard  but no-one on his ticket for the city council.

He agrees the council must lift its game on provision of housing for the socially disadvantaged and elderly. "But I'm not saying the ratepayers should fund it".

The Government has signalled there may be a contestable Crown fund for provision of housing for those most in need, "and we'll have to be very aggressive to get our share of it".

Mr Wallace says Government, local council and private developer joint ventures are being talked about. Hutt City Council could come to the table with land; there are suitable sites in Parkway and Naenae, for example.

It has long been recognised in the state housing sector that couples have remained in large family homes long after children have moved away. Yet there are long waiting lists, "and we even get people living in garages and so on".

Mr Wallace says the trend  for Housing New Zealand and for councils' units  is growing demand for smaller houses and units for our ageing population and sole parent/small households.

He argues there is scope to move people who have outgrown larger properties "as long as it's done sympathetically, with other accommodation found in their immediate local area".

In view of changing Government policy and growing need, Mr Wallace suggests it's prudent to have a review right now on whether UrbanPlus is the best vehicle for the council's property dealings, and if its targets are ambitious enough.

Mayor David Ogden says he can understand, and even appreciate, VAN's philosophy, but it's "rather idealistic".

"[Housing] is not council's core business."

The speed at which UrbanPlus is achieving renewal/increases of the council's stock of just under 200 units "is not as good as it might have been" but Mr Ogden says he detects no widespread appetite by ratepayers for large-scale borrowing to build more council flats.

He's confident UrbanPlus will lift its game given more time, and points to how another council-owned company, Seaview Marina Ltd, has reinvested revenue to significantly enlarge the asset and facilities, and yet still produce a dividend to council.

"That marina was languishing before."

He says the housing question is about much more than flats for the elderly and socially disadvantaged.

Initiatives by the Ogden-led council with potentially far more impact on the city's overall housing stock, include changes to planning rules allowing intensification of housing around suburban shopping malls and transport nodes; incentives for inner city living apartments in the CBD, and more mixed use developments in Petone.

Mr Ogden says he has talked with housing ministers this triennium and the last, putting the Hutt's case, even if Housing New Zealand blueprints he's seen for state house renewal at the eastern end of Jackson St and in Pomare have so far gone nowhere.

- Hutt News