Dunedin could soon find itself facing a full-blown housing crisis if issues with the city’s housing stock are not addressed soon, Mayor Dave Cull says.
His comments come as tenants, support services, industry insiders and a politicians all say a severe shortage of rental housing in the city, combined with rising rents, is leaving a growing number of residents locked out of suitable accommodation.
While Dunedin was not yet in the same situation as other places such as Auckland and Queenstown, it could quickly find itself in a crisis, Mr Cull said.
"It’s becoming obvious from the number of reports coming out we’re not far away from a full-on crisis, which means there’s a real incentive to get on top of those problems sooner rather than later."
The newly established mayoral task force on housing would meet for the first time at the end of the month and would focus on addressing the various issues the city was facing.
Issues with the shrinking rental market, the quality of rental properties and the pressure on social housing would all be considered by the group, which had the power to make recommendations to the Dunedin City Council, Mr Cull said.
"Initially, it was going to be tasked with looking at the city’s social housing issues but at my recommendation it’s now going to look at all the housing issues because it’s pretty clear the issues are much wider than just social housing."
A housing crisis would have a disproportionate effect on residents on low incomes, including the city’s elderly residents, and would also hamper future economic development.
"It’s also an economic issue, particularly when you’re trying to attract people to the city but they can’t find suitable housing."
Pressure on the rental market would only increase once major projects such as the hospital rebuild started, he said.
"We saw the possibility of a crisis coming, which is what led to the forming of the task force and its task now is to get a handle of the situation before it’s too late."
Council housing manager Alana Reid said 185 people were on the council’s community housing list.
Of the 942 social housing units the council owned, 12 were unoccupied.
The empty units were either in the process of being offered to tenants or undergoing repairs and maintenance, Ms Reid said.
Those being repaired were all expected to be occupied within three weeks of completion, she said.
Some people chose to stay on the waiting list until a specific unit or accommodation in a specific area became available.
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Just a thought maybe you could allow more people to open up land and lower the cost of building consents and more houses would be built there for more rental properties would become available.
Has Cull just woke up from a Nap? He has always been out of step with the towns needs and he thinks he has been the only one in step. Maybe if he welcomed business to Dunedin over the years such companies would have gradually grown Dunedin, Instead Cull and his council have refused to welcome new industry to Dunedin. Cull looks like the penny has dropped and you have woken up to what people have been saying for years. I guess you can no longer sit on your hands. You have now publicly acknowledge Dunedin has problem so it needs to be sorted. The best thing you could do is retire along with the other non beleivers on council Let new blood shape Dunedin. Looks like Culls plan of turning Dunedin in to a Village has failed.
There is no housing crisis in Dunedin.
The problem is houses to rent are getting more expensive and that does not fit with the huge number of beneficiaries that live in Dunedin.
A working person is not going to have a problem finding a house only those students and solo parents (which we have many ) are having issues.