Work has started on transforming the Boulevard Motel into transitional housing for 80 people. Photo / Andrew Warner
Work has started on transforming the Boulevard Motel into transitional housing for 80 people. Photo / Andrew Warner
Restore Rotorua says it has been "inundated" with residents wanting to give evidence at a hearing on whether housing for the homeless should be allowed in six central city motels.
Restore Rotorua is an incorporated society formed to stop the council from considering resource consents for transitional and emergency housingwithout public consultation, mainly around the Fenton St area.
Restore Rotorua has publicly criticised the council for allowing an influx of emergency and transitional housing in the central city and is challenging upcoming land-use change resource consent applications.
The group is concerned that Boulevard Motel on Fenton St - bought recently by the Government for $8.1 million - was granted a land-use change resource consent to transform the former motel into transitional housing for 80 people without being publicly notified.
Restore Rotorua engaged lawyers and has since found there are six other land-use change resource consent applications before the council.
Restore Rotorua chairman Trevor Newbrook said their lawyers were working with more than 80 people to document their experiences in briefs of evidence for the panel.
"They are all directly and detrimentally impacted. Lots of tears and heartache for people like me who live in the CBD and are wearing the fallout from the changed character of the neighbourhood."
Newbrook said the change, which allowed the homeless to live in motels, had been for the worse, in his view, and many locals felt "at the point of no return" and were thinking of selling up and leaving.
"We don't want to go."
He said there were "hundreds more" who were too shy to speak but wanted to attend the hearing in support.
"Residents of Rotorua never got to have a say when Boulevard Motel was turned into transitional housing. This was not notified and the application was rushed through in 20 working days.
"We are working hard to ensure that those of us most affected are heard on these six new applications to turn CBD motels into emergency housing.
"This is critical for us but also for all residents of Rotorua as the character of our city has and is being irrevocably changed by what's going on in our CBD."
Rotorua Lakes Council District Development deputy chief executive Jean-Paul Gaston. Photo / NZME
Council District Development deputy chief executive Jean-Paul Gaston previously said, in assessing any consent, that planners considered the level of effects of the new activity against the District Plan and the Resource Management Act and whether it would be significant enough to require notifying neighbours and the wider community.
In terms of the Boulevard Motel, he said it was determined that the effects of people staying in the accommodation as visitors and people staying in the motel for residential purposes would be relatively similar.
In response to Restore Rotorua's comments, Gaston said to suggest the processing of the resource consent application for the Boulevard Motel complex was "rushed" through was incorrect.
"We can provide an assurance that the processing planners followed the legislative process in line with what is set out in the Resource Management Act and the Rotorua District Plan."
Gaston said in response to questions that all six resource consent applications were on hold while further information was provided by the applicant following a request from the council under section 92 of the Resource Management Act.
In the meantime, the council was in the process of engaging and appointing Independent commissioners to review the applications, including further information yet to be provided.
They would then advise the council if they were available to accept an appointment to an independent hearing panel.
The panel would determine the timeframes and process.
McDonald's franchisee Rob Parry. Photo / NZME
McDonald's Rotorua franchisee Rob Parry said although he was not a member of Restore Rotorua, he supported anything that would help return Rotorua to its former glory. He said he feared for his staff who endured abuse from what he believed was a new element in Rotorua.
Parry, who has just spent $2.6 million on a redevelopment of the McDonald's Fenton St restaurant, said it was heartbreaking to see the state of Fenton St.
He said there was more pride in the area in the "old days".
"Now you look at it and the grass is out of control. I just wish there was more pride."
When asked if he would support Restore Rotorua at the resource consent hearing next year, he said he would support anything that provided a clear pathway of improvement.
"The fact of the matter is Rotorua is a tough town - and it's getting tougher."
He said his biggest worry was his staff and other retail staff in Rotorua were now "fair game" for abuse.
Parry said it wasn't clear if the issues caused by the housing crisis would ever improve, which was his concern.
"We just don't know if things will ever get back to normal. Clearly we have to look after people in unfortunate circumstances but long-term housing in motels is not the answer."
