On The Tiles - Local Edition: Rotorua's MSD mile and councils' housing failure

Emergency services attending a fire at a Fenton St motel in Rotorua. Photo / Kelly Makiha

A road of motels that gave way to Rotorua being nicknamed Rotovegas has turn into a serious safety issue that's now at the centre of the city's mayoral campaign.

Rotorua's "motel mile" on Fenton St has become known as "MSD mile".

It started during the first Covid-19 lockdown when it was necessary to find accommodation for rough sleepers in Rotorua, Local Democracy reporter Felix Desmarais said.

Now, many motels along the street are being used for emergency housing, he told the Herald's politics podcast On The Tiles - Local Edition.

"The community, generally speaking, feel that it's got a bit out of control.

"There's a whole lot of social issues and disorder, not just outside of the motels and affecting surrounding suburbs, but also inside. I did a story about the number of police callouts for domestic abuse in those motels and it was shocking."

But how much Rotorua Lakes Council can actually do about it is another question, Desmarais said.

"It's really something, primarily, the Government needs to sort out."

Despite this, community safety is usually the first thing that comes out of mayoral candidates' mouths on the campaign trail, Desmarais said.

One of the first clear policies he heard from candidates on the issue was Tania Tapsell's pledge that her council would put $1.5 million into community safety.

But Desmarais pointed out that even if she was elected mayor, she was still just one vote around the table.

The council has also already bumped up community safety initiatives through its long-term plan last year, he said.

Desmarais said another thing councils could do about the issue was lobby central government.

"That's been one of the criticisms of the council at the moment is that the council did not stand up to the Government to stop the proliferation of motel use in the city."

Many of Rotorua's mayoral candidates are no stranger to central government politics.

Tapsell was National's candidate for the East Coast electorate in the last general election.

Former New Zealand First deputy leader Fletcher Tabuteau is also in the race as well as Ben Sandford, who was Labour's candidate for Rotorua in the 2017 general election.

Businesswoman Kalaadevi Ananda is also in the running along with Rania Sears and sitting councillors Raj Kumar and Reynold Macpherson.

Rotorua's emergency housing problem comes as Labour and National have joined forces behind a radical new policy.

Their Housing Supply Bill allows up to three homes of up to three storeys to be built on most sites without the need for a costly and frustrating resource consent.

Some councils have said they were blindsided by the bill and were annoyed they were not consulted.

But National's housing spokesman Chris Bishop told the podcast councils only have themselves to blame.

"Because for 20 or 30 years, through their various district plans and land use policies, they've just made it very difficult to build."

Bishop said the bill sent a clear message housing supply was critical.

He said central government was now bearing the fiscal cost of the housing affordability challenge by paying to house people in motels.

"It's just an intolerable situation that in a developed country like New Zealand kids live in cars, they live in campgrounds, and they live in tents, and we house people in motels."

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