Healthy Homes standards include basic requirements for heating and insulation. Photo / File
The Government has confirmed it is considering extending the state landlord’s deadline next year to meet minimum Healthy Homes requirements.
While it won’t confirm exactly if or when that could occur, opposition MPs say they’ve been leaked information to say an announcement is coming on Monday.
Kāinga Ora has a different timeframe to ensure its 65,000 public homes covered by the standards meet the requirements, including for minimum levels of heating, insulation and ventilation.
The private sector has been required to meet the standards within 90 days of any new tenancy from July last year, but the state landlord and registered Community Housing Providers have until July 1 next year to ensure all of its homes are compliant.
All rentals must meet the standards by July 1, 2024.
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.
Today in Parliament, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, speaking in place of Housing Minister Megan Woods, confirmed 68 per cent now met the standards - 43,775 homes. Just over 10,600 homes were currently being renovated.
The delivery rate had increased from 180 homes a week in June last year to 600 homes a week in October 2022, Sepuloni said.
Even at that high rate of delivery, the figures indicate Kāinga Ora would miss its target by several thousand properties.
Asked directly in the House by Act Party deputy leader Brooke Van Velden if Kāinga Ora would meet its deadline and if it would be given an extension, Sepuloni said that was “under active Cabinet consideration”.
“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 a response to this but that is currently under active Cabinet consideration and so I cannot pre-empt a Cabinet decision.”
Van Velden challenged Sepuloni on her response, urging Speaker Adrian Rurawhe to intervene and order she confirm if an extension was to be granted.
Granted a further question, Van Velden then asked Sepuloni if Kāinga Ora had asked for an extension, then if the Government would ever rule out an extension.
Sepuloni repeated the line an extension was “under active consideration”.
Van Velden said she’d been leaked information to say Cabinet was deciding on an extension on Monday and would announce it next week.
“Handing an extension to Kāinga Ora is an insult to all the landlords who did their best and stomached the costs of meeting the standards by the deadline imposed on them by the Government.”
National’s housing spokesman Chris Bishop said he’d also been leaked the information, saying the Government planned to announce the extension on Monday, buried alongside two other housing-related announcements.
“It’s one rule for the Government and one rule for private landlords,” Bishop said.
Inspection company All Clear Group NZ’s co-founder Adam Gordon said it was “pretty disappointing” to hear the Government could be shifting the deadline as 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 that the proportion was steadily growing as tenancies were renewed.
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.
Kāinga Ora maintenance contracting and asset services director Andrew Booker said 84 per cent of Kāinga Ora homes either met the Healthy Homes Standards or had work in progress to meet them.
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.