Three of 21 Bella Vista homes no longer considered dangerous, can be reoccupied

Keen sailor and Mt Maunganui businessman Stuart Pedersen has chipped in to help Bella Vista housing victims. Photo / File

Three of the 21 Bella Vista homes previously ruled as unliveable can now be reoccupied.

Tauranga City Council's general manager chief executive group Kirsty Downey said their structural experts and legal adviser said late on Friday afternoon "that three of the properties at Aneta Way were no longer considered 'dangerous and/or affected' and could be reoccupied".

"These three buildings on Aneta Way were referred to during the owner meeting last week as being affected due to the potential for wind to lift roofs off other homes nearby, or they had not been invasively tested," she said.

She said after more invasive testing the council had withdrawn the "dangerous and/or affected" notices from numbers 2, 3, and 4 Aneta Way.

Meanwhile, members of the Tauranga community are doing what they can to make life a little easier for those caught up in the Bella Vista building company liquidation.

Stuart Pedersen was part of an outpouring of community support for the homeowners evicted after the council declared their houses were either dangerous or affected by a neighbouring dangerous house.

Pedersen has offered his family bach at Lake Rotoiti for the last week of the school holidays, saying he wanted to give a family some respite in a peaceful and relaxed setting.

He said it was a tragedy for the homeowners, particularly those whose homes had been signed off by the council as complying with the building code.

''I feel sorry for them. A lot are first-home buyers and are up to their eyeballs in debt. Where do they go now? It is not a happy situation.''

The roomy bach is just 40 minutes from Mt Maunganui on the new motorway, so he would look at renting the house past the end of the holidays, he said.

''It would not be free but it would not be as much as Tauranga rents that's for sure.''

Pedersen, a Mt Maunganui businessman, predicted that all Tauranga ratepayers would end up paying because someone in the council had screwed up. ''It will come back on us.''

He directed his offer to Bethlehem woman Jane Blakeman who this week put up her hand to co-ordinate community support for the affected families if they wanted it.

So far she has received nearly 50 responses from people wanting to know how they could help. Blakeman has passed the offers to a Facebook page set up by the Bella Vista Evacuees Support Group.

She said it included Pedersen's offer, one from a woman living in Maungatapu who offered rent-free use of her modest basement flat, and a Tauranga resident offering a discounted rate on an Airbnb.

Blakeman said the Bella Vista house owners were finding it hard to reach out and ask for help.

''We have to be sensitive to their needs. People want to support them but they are not sure how.''

Offers of support had come in many different forms, ranging from accommodation to hosting the residents for dinner on Friday night.

Owners of the 21 Bella Vista-built houses sealed by the council six weeks ago received the shattering news last week that their homes could not be reoccupied. Residents now have to put forward hardship cases for the council to continue to pay their accommodation, which expired last Friday.