The Fiordland Business Association (FBA) estimated from $6 million to $9m is being lost to the Te Anau economy annually because of a lack of accommodation for workers. Businesses had to limit hours and struggled to keep good staff.
Association chairman Nathan Benfell said the Southland District Council was not helping to remedy the lack of accommodation in Te Anau.
Mr Benfell said the township had enough housing to cater for its seasonal workforce but too much of it was being let out as short-term accommodation rather than entering the rental property pool.
He wanted to know what Southland District Mayor Rob Scott and council staff were doing about the problem.
"This problem has been around for donkey’s years. What are you doing to fix this problem?
"Where are the leaders? They’re the Ritchie McCaws of the team, so you look to your leaders for direction.
"We’ve struggled with local authorities. We’ve given them plenty of examples where people were outside the [compliance] criteria."
But the council told him it did not have the resources to monitor compliance.
"They need to lead that change. They need to be representing their customer — their customer is the ratepayer."
The worker accommodation shortage was limiting the region’s ability to grow and recover from the pandemic’s impact.
"Between $6m and $9m of income loss is associated to not being able to hire those staff."
He believed the figure was greater because it only accounted for wages, not spending.
"It’s a bigger beast than what everyone would like it to be."
Proper monitoring from the council could result in a pool of non-compliant short-term accommodation return to the rental pool, he said.
The association has had to pause its proposed worker accommodation project until adequate investors could be found to relaunch it.
The project was unable to reach critical thresholds to cover development costs.
Up to 30 low-cost, high-quality prefab units would be built in South Canterbury and transported to an Alpine Dr site in Te Anau.
Mr Benfell said more than one factor had impacted the lack of take-up from investors — including its "pretty lofty goal" to sell more than 30 units within three months.
The entire lot of 30 units sited on leasehold land needed to be presold before work could start. Issues over leasehold land may have also impacted it.
While there was good interest, the property had to be used for workers, which may have been a deterrent.
He knew of some businesses that had constructed their own worker accommodation in order to guarantee staff a bed to sleep in.
Southland district councillor Sarah Greaney said the council was presently working across all spectrums of housing and a report had been tabled by the council last year outlining how different areas were being impacted.
She said a multi-pronged approach was needed to address the issues.
Te Anau’s shortage was not unique; Riverton also had accommodation shortages during summer, she said.
Fiordland Community Board chairwoman Diane Holmes said the accommodation problem was a complex one that was seasonal.
"We tend to have a flurry of people who are looking for workers’ accommodation," she said
"It’s very hard to set up a system where you are just going to have people for two or three months."
She had hoped the FBA-proposed housing complex would help to meet the town’s needs.
Board members had been waiting to see how the Queenstown region had fared by its clampdown on the short-term accommodation market.
"Larger councils than ours have taken on Airbnb and Airbnb have responded by suing them. So we would like to see the outcome potentially of those cases.
The Queenstown clampdown had not appeared to have remedied the situation, she said.
By Toni McDonald
