From Monday, Queenstown people will have the chance to share their thoughts on the council’s plan to solve the rental housing crisis.
In a full Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) meeting yesterday, elected members unanimously voted to send the draft joint housing action plan to public consultation.
It would be open for feedback from May 1 to June 9, and already had changes suggested by councillors.
Cr Niki Gladding shared concerns the Grow Well Whaiora partnership — made up of the council, Kainga Ora, the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust and partners and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development — seemed more a title than actual collaboration.
She was worried the council was solving a mostly central government issue, and it seemed the expectation was more on QLDC to implement and drive the solutions.
That responsibility would result in further increasing rates for Queenstown residents, something the community would note and push back against, she said.
Cr Lyal Cocks was also nervous partnership might be "slumped" towards council, and made it clear he was a fan of "getting rid of the fluff" and taking action.
Crs Gladding and Esther Whitehead also raised what the latter deemed "red flags" around definitions and details of emergency housing.
Cr Whitehead noted disparity between Ministry of Social Development’s definition and the public’s understanding of emergency housing, including the fact the ministry did not support homelessness as a reason to be eligible.
"How we communicate it is essential," she said.
Council strategic growth manager Anita Vanstone, who prepared the report, acknowledged the imbalance, saying "what we’re hearing from our government partners is we don’t have the demand for emergency housing, so a big part of this is pulling the evidence together to say ‘yes, we do"’.
She suggested including emergency housing under "public housing" in the third section of the draft plan, which aimed to investigate opportunities to enable more affordable housing choices.
The plan proposed nine solutions in total, all designed to help solve the rental crisis.
One of the solutions involved engaging with community and businesses to find answers to workforce and housing availability, including "adopting a worker", an initiative originally implemented in Port Douglas, in Australia.
Council general manager strategy and policy Michelle Morss said the draft received the support of Kai Tahu, whose only additional request was to have the council work with iwi to produce key performance indicator measurements for increasing Maori housing.
It would be added to the plan during the public consultation process.
