The Otago University Students' Association is taking its fight for better-quality student flats to Parliament.
President Francisco Hernandez said students had put up with sub-par housing for too long and, in an effort to force bad landlords to raise their game, OUSA was working with the Dunedin City Council to get a local Bill before Parliament.
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said the council had explored the idea of putting forward a local Bill and was interested in working with OUSA to improve the quality of rental housing, not just for students, but for the whole of Dunedin.
''The council recognises that the standard of housing ... leaves a bit to be desired in some places,'' Mr Cull said.
The present law meant the council could not pass a bylaw enforcing a minimum standard for rental properties, hence the need for government legislation and a local Bill, he said.
The council was still in the ''early stages'' of discussing a local Bill and it was too early to say what form minimum standards might take and how they might be enforced.
''I don't want to be to prescriptive about what it might look like, because I just don't know,'' he said.
Mr Hernandez envisaged the Bill would allow the council to set up a housing warrant of fitness scheme, with a minimum standard for rental properties.
''We have had a long time of the status quo and I think regulation is needed to upgrade these houses to first-world standard.
''I hope that it will improve the health and wellbeing of everyone in Dunedin, because obviously sub-standard housing is not just a student issue,'' he said.
If the plan went ahead, there would be a transition period giving landlords time to upgrade their flats, but Mr Hernandez imagined some landlords would still be unhappy about having to work on their properties.
''I think it will only annoy the landlords that haven't bothered investing in their flats [and] I don't care if they are annoyed, because quite frankly they need to up their game a little bit.''
He hoped the Bill would be drafted by the end of this year.
Generation Zero member Lindsey Horne who, with fellow group members, has taken on the challenge of cleaning up Dunedin's worst flat, supported the idea of a housing warrant of fitness.
She and the other students fixing up the flat had come across many other flats with poor insulation while looking for a project to take on.
