Tauranga council pursues option for selling pensioner housing

Pooles Village is one of the pensioner villages that the Tauranga City Council owns. Photo/George Novak

The Tauranga City Council is pursuing a recommendation to either sell or turn over management of its portfolio of pensioner villages to a community housing provider.

At a meeting of the Community and Culture Committee today, councillors voted unanimously to further investigate two of the options put forward in the New Zealand Housing Foundation's review of the council's elder housing.

A working group will look further into the two options and will present findings to the committee in October.

The council would decide which option to continue with in November and enter into a public consultation process as part of the Long Term Plan discussions early next year. A final decision was expected June next year.

At the meeting Mayor Greg Brownless said he liked the idea of the council retaining some form of ownership over the villages.

The council needed to figure out a way to structure the solution so that future tenants could take advantage of a government income-related housing subsidy that "for some silly reason" was not available to residents of council-run units, Mr Brownless said.

The committee heard that the subsidy, which capped rent at 25 per cent of income and had the Government top up the payment to a market-rent level, could make units cheaper for some pensioners.

A single person earning a $450-a-week pension would pay $112 per week instead of the $139 the council charged. A couple receiving $682 would pay $170.50 instead of $169.

The subsidy would not be available to current council tenants.

Councillors also discussed the need to improve accessibility and lift the standards in some existing units, and the urgent need for more housing stock to house growing numbers of older people struggling on low incomes.

"We need to make smart decisions now so that in 20 years we don't have elderly living on our streets," Cr Steve Morris said.

Committee members talked about the public debate the matter had sparked, and emphasised the need for good communication to help people understand its decisions and ease any suspicion of the council's motives.