Age Concern is worried vulnerable tenants will struggle to pay an 11 per cent rent increase the Hastings District Council says it needs to pass on to prevent its pensioner housing scheme from becoming a drain on ratepayers.
The council is putting up the rents it charges tenants in about 220 units it runs at a number of rental complexes across the city, saying the increase is needed to fully recover the cost of the scheme.
The rent hike will see the cost of a single-bedroom unit rise from $108 to $120 a week.
Residents of the council's Swansea Village facility in Flaxmere met with Mayor Lawrence Yule, councillors and council staff yesterday to express their frustrations at the increase. Mr Yule said the council's pensioner housing service was run on a not-for-profit basis, meaning tenants were charged less than market rents, but those rents needed to be sufficient to recover costs.
At current rates, the scheme was not bringing in enough to pay for upgrades to the properties, such as bathroom makeovers, when they were required, Mr Yule said. "The council has got a policy that these are effectively rates-neutral, in other words the cost of running pensioner houses should be met by the rentals that are charged for those houses. That is what we have been doing and that is what we will continue to do."