Government considering Healthy Homes extension for all landlords

All rentals must meet the standards by July 1, 2024. Photo / File

The Government has confirmed an extension is being considered for all landlords, including private rentals and Kāinga Ora, to meet minimum Healthy Homes standards.

On Thursday, under questioning in the House from the Act Party the Government confirmed an extension for the state landlord to meet its deadline was “under active Cabinet consideration”.

A spokeswoman from Minister of Housing Megan Woods’ office has now confirmed the extension being considered covers the private sector also.

Kāinga Ora and registered community housing providers have until July 1 next year to ensure its 65,000 public homes covered by the standards meet the requirements, including minimum levels of heating, insulation and ventilation.

The private sector has been required to meet the standards within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy from July last year. This has excluded those on long-term tenancies or properties meeting certain conditions.

All rentals must meet the standards by July 1, 2024.

The spokeswoman confirmed to the Herald extensions were being considered not only for Kāinga Ora’s deadline next year but the 2024 deadline covering all properties including the private sector. This was to account for disruptions due to Covid-19 and supply-chain issues, which Kāinga Ora says set back its renovation programme by six months.

It is understood an announcement is coming next week along with other housing-related decisions including around standards for methamphetamine and contamination and testing in properties, which has been delayed nearly two years.

The spokeswoman confirmed the standards were also under “active consideration”.

Kāinga Ora has been under pressure over the rate at which it has been renovating its properties, many of those home to some of the country’s most vulnerable residents, with its programme not immune to Covid restrictions and supply issues hitting the wider building industry.

In July last year, just one in five met the standards. In July this year, it was up to just over 50 per cent.

Kāinga Ora maintenance contracting and asset services director Andrew Booker said 68 per cent of their properties now met the standards - 43,775 homes. Just over 10,600 homes were currently being renovated.

This meant 84 per cent of Kāinga Ora homes either met the Healthy Homes Standards or had work in progress to meet them.

The delivery rate had increased from 180 homes a week in June last year to 600 homes a week in October 2022.

However, even at that high rate of delivery, the figures indicated Kāinga Ora would miss its target by several thousand properties.

Booker did not directly answer questions if they were committed to the July 1, 2023, deadline, instead saying there were “working at pace” and “committed to completing the work as quickly as possible”.

Booker said the programme had started in December 2019, just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

They estimated 950,000 hours of work would be required to meet the standards, but Covid restrictions meant they lost about 240,000 of those hours over the past two years, or six months’ work.

In the House on Thursday, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, speaking in place of Woods, said in response to questions specifically about Kāinga Ora that an extension was “under active Cabinet consideration”.

It came in response to questions from Act Party deputy leader Brooke Van Velden, who said she’d been leaked information to suggest an extension was to be announced next week.

“We’ve heard from landlords that there have been challenges across the sector in complying with the healthy homes standards,” Sepuloni said.

“Covid-19 did create delays with labour shortages, issues accessing tenants’ homes, and supply chain problems for products like heat pumps and insulation materials.

“We want to be pragmatic about our response to this, but that is currently under active Cabinet consideration, and so I cannot pre-empt a Cabinet decision.”

Van Velden said on Friday it was an “enormous victory” to see private landlords and Kāinga Ora be granted extensions.

Van Velden said she had been leaked information to suggest initially only Kāinga Ora would receive an extension and urged the Government to provide evidence that was not the case.

Inspection company All Clear Group NZ’s co-founder Adam Gordon told the Herald the private sector was “well on its way” to meeting standards.

Gordon said 63 per cent of the properties they assessed were fully compliant with the Healthy Homes standards. They covered about 15 per cent of the professionally managed private rental market of about 200,000 homes.

Gordon said the proportion was steadily growing as tenancies were renewed.

Speaking for the professionally managed private rental market, Gordon said there were high levels of compliance and understanding about why the changes needed to happen.

However, he said there was understood to be lower compliance in the independent landlord sector, which made up the bulk of the roughly 680,000 private rentals.

While all private rentals must now comply within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy, the Government is not collecting data on how many rentals are compliant with its Healthy Homes standards. It also does not require third parties to assess if properties meet the standards.

The Green Party has been advocating for a Warrant of Fitness to ensure rental homes were meeting standards and a register of landlords and property managers.