Help coming for families after state houses put on the market

Victoria Kingi deputy chairperson Nga Potiki Trust, Tane Brott co-director ABC Homes and Colin Reeder Chairman of Nga Potiki Trust. Photo / NZ Herald

"Help is on its way" for Tauranga's homeless families after a Government decision to sell the city's 1250 state houses, a social service leader says.

Tommy Wilson, executive director of Greerton-based Te Tuinga Whanau Support Services and a board member of the city's Ngati Ranginui iwi, said the choice of Tauranga along with Invercargill for the first 1000 to 2000 state house sales also created "a huge opportunity" for iwi.

"Eighty-two per cent of our staff time is looking for emergency housing," he said. "We've got a crisis."

He said it "can only be good" that all three of the city's main iwi, social service groups and the Tauranga Community Housing Trust at a briefing yesterday were willing to work together to take over the houses and redevelop more homes on the land.

"We left there feeling encouraged. Help is on its way," he said. "The good news is that those 1250 houses could be turned into 3000 houses by utilising the land."

The sales are the first of a planned 1000-2000 state house sales a year over the next three years. The Government has promised that Housing NZ will still have at least 60,000 homes by 2017, down from about 68,000 now.

Housing NZ Minister Bill English and Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said Tauranga and Invercargill were chosen to start "because they have stable demand for social housing and active community housing providers keen to consider the next steps".

Buyers must be registered community housing providers, but they are expected to form consortiums with iwi, social services and possibly commercial developers.

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said the Government was starting at opposite ends of the housing market.

"I guess they [Tauranga] would be quite a booming population and have quite a demand, whereas we had 30 years of population decline but in the last census we had a 2.7 per cent increase, which is pretty modest," he said.

Tauranga's waiting list for state houses in March was 139, or 11 per cent of the state houses available, compared with waiting lists of 8 per cent in Auckland and 7 per cent nationally.

Invercargill's waiting list was just 13 people, or 3 per cent of the city's 370 state houses.

But Mr Shadbolt welcomed the decision and said his council, which already owns 220 pensioner units, might be interested in buying the city's state houses.

Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby said he also supported the sales because of the chance to redevelop more houses on state land and because community providers "can actually do a better job than the Government".

Papamoa iwi Nga Potiki is already starting on a 240-home, $55 million subdivision with a development partner and its deputy chair Victoria Kingi said it was keen to buy either the 149 state houses in Papamoa on its own or all 1250 state houses in the city as part of a collective.

Ngati Ranginui has a right of first refusal over 131 state houses near its marae at Huria (Judea), Hairini and Waimapu (Poike) under its 2013 Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown.

Ngai Te Rangi and Nga Potiki agreed in their settlement, also in 2013, that "the parties acknowledge that it is the intention of Ngai Te Rangi and Nga Potiki to deal directly with Housing NZ with regard to a right of first refusal over its properties".

Mr English said ministers would consult first with iwi and hapu "before deciding whether to proceed to market sounding".

The next steps would be market sounding "to engage with potential market participants", then seeking expressions of interest, then requests for proposals, and finally negotiating with preferred bidders. Final sales are expected nine to 12 months after a decision to go ahead.