Tenants celebrate Napier council's decision to keep community housing

Fiona Clements, left, with her fellow Napier city council-owned community housing tenants celebrating councillors' decision to keep their homes. Photo / Warren Buckland

Community housing tenants and the Napier Housing Coalition are celebrating the decision to keep council-owned housing.

Councillors unanimously voted to keep Napier City Council's 377 units across 12 locations on Wednesday evening this week after receiving 291 submissions in public consultation.

Fiona Clements, a council-owned community housing tenant, said her first reaction was relief.

"Relief from here to there and back again. Whew, oh my god we won, we won?"

"I don't know how to put that feeling into words."

She said all her fellow tenants she had spoken to since hearing the news were feeling the same way.

"This has been going on for four years."

She said some people hadn't had high hopes the council was going to keep the housing.

"Somebody had said Tauranga had sold their housing and you're trying to keep positive but people tend to go to the negative and say 'well they've just sold theirs so Napier will sell theirs, you're not going to win this'".

Napier Housing coalition advocate Dawn Bedingfield attended the meeting and said the decision to keep the community housing was "the best news ever".

"I didn't expect it to go this way but when we ramped up last week, the reactions we were getting on social media and the constant tooting of support and the people we were talking to around town, I think they realized what the community wanted."

She said she planned to continue to advocate to ensure the housings' funding was equitable for the tenants.

The council is proposing to fund the housing with a ratio of 80 per cent private funding through tenants' rent and 20 per cent public funding through rates.

The council is currently proposing to fund the housing with a ratio of 80 per cent private funding through tenants' rent and 20 per cent public funding through rates. Photo / Warren Buckland

Bedingfield said it would be better if the ratio was closer to 50-50 to have the cost spread among ratepayers rather than borne mainly by the tenants who will be impacted the hardest.

"Everybody can find a dollar to help those less fortunate"

Pene Johnstone, an accountant and advocate for keeping the community housing, said she and others may have underestimated the elected councillors' willingness to keep the social housing.

"It was a very good result and I think a lot of it was to do with all of the submissions that were sent in."

"They were 70 per cent in favour of keeping and 90 per cent of the submissions in person were for keeping as well."

A council spokesperson said a final analysis of the forecast costs can now be completed in preparation for the 2023/24 Annual Plan since the decision was finalised yesterday.

The spokesperson said this would include the decision for 80 per cent private funding through tenants' rent and 20 per cent public funding through rates.

The spokesperson said the council is planning a new "cost recovery approach" for rent in the housing which is intended to cover the operating and capital costs while also building up a reserve to fund future costs.

"The service costs are now to be covered by both the tenant, who receives a direct benefit of the service and the community who own the asset (through council ownership)."

The spokesperson said that the council will continue to lobby the Government along with others in local government for an income-based subsidy to aid the tenants of the council-owned housing.

"It is safe to say, we will use every avenue available to lobby for change, so our tenants and our community can continue to access affordable housing in a sustainable way."