The council's housing officer Kathleen Nicholas and building officer Tony McHannigan's report said the complexes had "a book value" of $7.9 million.
"Some of the insulation levels in the housing for the elderly units are well below today's New Zealand Building Code requirements ... in some complexes there is no underfloor insulation at all," the report said.
"Therefore the proposed insulation upgrade is a means of providing an improved and acceptable standard of living to our elderly tenants."
Councillors wanted to know if heat pumps could be installed into the units where insulation was not possible.
"If we're not insulating the unit, there would be no use in installing heat pumps because the heating would be going straight out of the roof," council community facilities manager Tanya Winter said.
"The elderly sometimes are reluctant to turn heat pumps on because they don't know how to use them effectively," she said.
Other councils around the country had opted out of managing elderly housing in favour of letting private organisations run it as a business.
Hastings District Council said it still believed housing for the elderly was an essential part of its service to the community and had no plans to hand it over to private operators.
It had committed money in its 10-year plan for work around the complexes, including car parking ($130,000), showers ($559,000), mobility scooter storage and power supply ($80,000).
The cash for these projects and the insulation work would come from the council's housing for the elderly reserve, which to date had $340,000.
Rent collected from the units was used to maintain the complexes each year, with the balance going into the reserve fund.
