The Queenstown Lakes District Council will investigate a "mandatory inclusionary zoning programme" and review its own land holdings to help deliver 1000 community affordable homes, with secure tenure, over the next 10 years.
A progress report from the Mayoral Housing Affordability Taskforce will be presented to the council at its full meeting in Queenstown on Thursday.
The council said despite progress, "forward movement in terms of physical homes for our residents is slow".
"As one measure of the demand, the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust currently has over 500 eligible households and [this] is growing monthly."
A table outlined the housing trust’s planned affordable housing units and showed the upcoming yields were "well below the need".
A total of 29 units were confirmed and going ahead — six at Shotover Country, 14 at the Queenstown Country Club’s Onslow Rd development and nine at the Bullendale, in Arthurs Point.
Another 25 at Ladies Mile were in the "early planning stages" and while 50 units were planned at the Toru Apartments at Remarkables Park, "the price point may be too high to be considered affordable housing".
The task force was formed in April last year by Mayor Jim Boult to investigate new ways of addressing housing availability and affordability in the district.
It aimed for the district’s workforce to be able to own or occupy a home, allowing them to live within their means, by 2048.
The update said beyond the housing trust, other affordable home developments in the district were "few", with the exception of the recently announced KiwiBuild initiative in Wanaka.
While that was an "excellent example of affordable homes provision" it would not assist long term because they would "eventually be on-sold at normal market rates".
One of the recommendations of the task force was for the council to provide more land, intensification and inclusionary zoning to enable more development and in-filling options.
With regard to inclusionary zoning, which requires new developments to provide a component of the new supply that is affordable, the task force recommended the council investigate and consider advancing a "mandatory" programme by the first quarter of next year through the district plan review.
It also recommended the council review its own land holdings and look for opportunities to contribute further towards affordable community housing "to at least the same level to other developers’ contributions".
The task force’s update said a survey of council land was starting and the council had five other inquiries about potential special housing areas (SHAs) "in the early stages of the pipeline".
"Given land is a finite resource, the provision of land will continue to be the crucial component in addressing housing affordability issues in the district going forward," the report said.
"Continuing to ensure 10% of any future SHAs negotiated are passed to the [housing trust] or similar organisation is vital to maintaining and growing the pool of affordable homes in our region.
"Beyond SHAs, the task force sees that more work can be done by council to ensure access to land is available for this purpose.
"As a piece of this work, planning controls such as inclusionary zoning will be further researched as an aspect of the proposed affordable housing strategy, and implemented if deemed appropriate through stage 3 of the district plan."
