At the first council meeting of the year on Wednesday a proposal was agreed that would give first-home buyers preference in council-led developments such as Gair Ave, in Cromwell, and The Pines, in Alexandra.
It had taken more than two years to arrive at the decision.
Councillor Nigel McKinlay was underwhelmed. The policy was "symbolic and meaningless", and no-one had a clue what they were talking about without data.
"We are making a pious resolution to an area that we’ve got very little information about and it won’t have even a symbolic effect on the housing market."
Central Otago District Council group manager business support Saskia Righarts said they had not done a housing needs assessment so did not have data on housing in the district.
It did make deciding who should be preferential buyers difficult but it was known first-home buyers struggled to get into the property market, she said.
Council group manager planning and infrastructure Louise van der Voort said the council could request a housing needs assessment through the long-term plan. A nearby council had spent $150,000 on one.
The properties would be priced at market value and first-home buyers would have a window of three to four weeks to make a purchase.
Any not sold would then go on the open market at the same price. If there was an oversubscription, a ballot would be drawn, Ms van der Voort said.
The only cost to ratepayers would be staff time to organise paperwork, she said.
Mayor Tim Cadogan said housing had been a problem for all of his eight years at the council table. While offering preference to first-home buyers was not going to resolve the situation, it was the best they could do.
"I’m slowly coming to the sad realisation myself that whilst this may seem very little, it’s probably the most we can do.
Maniototo councillor Stu Duncan queried the need to help first-home buyers, who now were the biggest movers in the housing market.
"A lot of things have changed in these two years [since the report was requested] and I don’t know why ... property valuations in the Maniototo have doubled in the last two years.
"They will still be out of reach until we have a reset on the valuation of some of these houses ... [First-home buyers are] never going to catch the bottom step of the ladder."
Vincent councillor Tamah Alley asked if first-home buyers could afford the properties under discussion.
"Probably not", Ms van der Voort said.
Cr McKinlay said it was hard to vote against something to help first-home buyers to get into houses but the voice of reason was saying it was a purely symbolic gesture.
"It’s a nothing motion."
Mr Cadogan said large rate rises coming down the line had to be considered.
"Grand ambitions fall by the wayside alongside survival at the moment."
Cr Alley said just because someone could not fix the whole problem did not mean they should do nothing.
Cr Duncan said the Maniototo and Teviot would not benefit as there were no council developments in those areas.
The problem was rapidly rising property prices and he did not know how to fix that.
"The ducks are floating down the river with the decoy."
Cr McKinlay was the only councillor to vote against the resolution.
The council had considered its role in housing and various options of what that might look like for several years.
In 2022, the council decided not to gift land to the Central Otago Affordable Housing Trust.
The trust had asked for a-third of all council-led developments to be managed by them in a Secure Homes model, which would give access to housing to those who would not otherwise be able to afford it.
The homes would remain affordable as capital gains were not earned when a property was sold back to the trust.
It was estimated the land would have accommodated a total of 36 homes. However, the cost to Cromwell and Vincent wards would have been $8 million not available for other work.
