Editorial - October 16, 2012

A matter of trust

IT isn't difficult to see any of the three points of view that have been aired over He Korowai Trust's housing development in Kaitaia. The trust says it is an innovative response to a very real need for affordable housing, prospective buyers say it offers them the opportunity to invest in their and their children's future and to live in a way that most people take for granted, and the neighbours, or at least some of them, are fearful.

One thing that cannot be argued is the lengths to which the trust has gone to ensure that it retains control over who lives at the end of Kohuhu Street, including criteria for acceptance that seem comprehensive, not to say controlling to a degree that most people would find excessively intrusive.

Those who buy these homes will be expected to be actively involved in training and/or earning a living; their children will be expected not only to behave themselves but to attend pre-school then school without exceptions or excuses; and their homes will be expected to be drug-, alcohol- and violence-free. That amounts to a form of tough love that the families who have signed up so far are clearly happy to accept. Indeed, the trust has given an assurance that if they aren't happy to comply they won't get within a bull's roar of the place.

If it all becomes too hard for them they will be assisted, and if that doesn't work they will be invited to pick up their houses and take them somewhere else. If that doesn't appeal the trust will have the right to buy their houses back and sell them to someone else.

As far as the neighbours are concerned, trust chief executive Ricky Houghton has also pointed out that the development is saving them from another fate: intensive residential development that would see many, many times the 18 homes it plans to site there, with no form of control over who lives in them or how they behave.

The proposal - it's actually gone beyond a proposal given that while the trust has expressed a willingness to discuss any concerns and address them these houses will be established and owners will move into them - is certainly innovative.

Mr Houghton is quite entitled to hope that other communities will replicate it, in that it goes far beyond putting a roof over the heads of families which would otherwise have little if any hope of ever owning a home of their own. And therein perhaps lies the greatest potential benefit.

It is commendable that the project looks beyond the basic need for housing, also promising access to skills that will hopefully change people's lives very much for the better. More fundamentally though there is the fact that home ownership of itself changes attitudes.

The best tenant will never regard someone else's home that they are paying to live in in the same way that they regard one that belongs to them. That is a fact, one that was expressed very eloquently by one of the prospective Kohuhu Street owners last week. She said she was renting a beautiful home but wanted to leave something for her children when she had gone. That, surely, is a fundamental human urge that she is entitled to pursue. And it is a sentiment that bodes well for the contribution she will make to this development.

The opportunity that this solution to housing problems represents for those who make the grade, and that won't be easy, and are invited to buy homes cannot be overestimated. It will be genuinely life-changing for them, and give their children a future that would seem to be totally beyond their grasp under their current circumstances.

That there is some consternation within the immediate neighbourhood is hardly surprising, but these families are part of our community, and surely deserve the same opportunities that others, who have been treated a little more kindly by what really can be a cruel world, take for granted.

The image that has been conjured up in some minds is of tatty 50-year-old houses that will still look like tatty 50-year-old houses even after renovation, occupied by people who will not abide by the drug, alcohol and violence rules, whose children will prey on their neighbours, depriving them of the peace of mind they currently enjoy and lowering the value of the properties they, judging by appearances, maintain to a very high standard. To be fair, who can blame them?

Given that this development will proceed, however, their only choice would seem to be to take Mr Houghton at his word, that the trust and the people who buy the homes want to be the best neighbours they can be.

The stakes might be high for those currently living in this quiet corner of Kaitaia, but he has a point. As one prospective owner pleaded last week, it is unfair to judge the families who are going to live there without even getting to know them. If she and He Korowai are genuine, and sincerity did not seem to be in short supply at last week's meeting, the neighbours might well be crossing some very big bridges before they get to them.

Having said that, it is hardly surprising that tolerance for anti-social behaviour has reached a low ebb in Kaitaia. It might be unfair to tar the families who plan to live in Kohuhu Street with the same brush that is applied to the drunken, violent rabble who all too frequently make their presence felt in Kaitaia, but it would be surprising if it wasn't. It will not have escaped the neighbours' notice that petty crime seems to have blossomed in Kohuhu and Taupata streets over recent weeks. Why that should be defies explanation. Clearly it has nothing to do with this housing development because no one is living there yet, but inevitably some will be regarding it as a taste of things to come.

At the end of the day there would seem to be three choices. One is to stop the development, which isn't going to happen, and banish the families planning to live there to some other site, where, presumably, they won't spoil anyone else's peace and quiet. Hopefully, whatever social problems might be afflicting Kaitaia, we have not yet reached that point, and never will. The second option is to batten the hatches and prepare for a siege. The third is to establish a working relationship with He Korowai, which appears to be happening, and to play an active role in helping it maintain the high standards it has set for the occupants of these homes.

That is by far the best option, not least because the trust is going to need the backing of the wider community to make this work. Setting standards of behaviour for home owners is one thing; keeping owners' associates at bay might be much more difficult.

The trust has made it clear that these home owners will not be opening their doors to hangers on, and that a family of six won't suddenly morph into 12. It may have to work hard to ensure that doesn't happen.

Hopefully this development will be a raging success, and will indeed be replicated, not only outside Kaitaia but within it. For the moment it is very much a matter of trust, but its chances of success will improve markedly if others pitch in to support it, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to fail.