VALLEY ACTION NETWORK
Housing Policy

Authorised by Grant Brookes, 51 Awamutu Grove, Lower Hutt

Build Council Houses – Create Jobs, Assets & Affordable Homes

The dream of owning your own home is now out of reach for many Hutt residents. In the last 15 years, house prices in Lower Hutt have trebled. Incomes have fallen far behind, and now unemployment is up and doubts are growing about future prospects.

Social housing, provided by councils and Housing NZ, used to make up a third of New Zealand's rental market. Now it's down to 19 percent. Meanwhile 10,500 people sit on the Housing NZ waiting list, including 375 individuals and families in the Hutt Valley, and the waiting list is growing.

Hutt City Council admits there’s a problem, with many people “locked out of home ownership by high prices, and rental increases stretching many households”. The problem is set to get worse. The Council’s housing arm, UrbanPlus, aims to increase the number of council houses in Lower Hutt from 187 to 210 by 2013, yet an additional 3,000 housing units will be needed in the Hutt Valley before 2023.

In the last year, UrbanPlus increased the housing stock by just 4 new units.

The Council says that “market cycles” will fix the housing problem. But the ongoing global financial crisis has shown that “market cycles” don’t always fix things. Hutt City Council must take some responsibility.

As recently as 1997 the Council owned 600 flats, which were let at reduced rents to those in need. This helped keep rents down for everyone. But a rash privatisation programme from the late 1990s saw the flats sold off, along with most of the family silver.

The Council promised that the new landlord would be “socially responsible” and protect tenants for the “long term”, but just three years after buying the 44 units in Britannia St in Petone, the new landlord sold them for a $2 million profit. All the tenants were evicted.

Wellington, by comparison, kept its 2,300 council flats. So it was able to negotiate a $220 million cash injection from the government in 2007 to pay for housing upgrades.

Ratepayers of Lower Hutt have now lost tens of millions of dollars due to our council’s ideological belief in privatisation, as the increased value of former council assets has flowed instead to private owners and government funding opportunities have been missed.

Today, the Council is willing to give private landlords even more ratepayer money. It offers “rates holidays” or secret loans worth millions to developers, like the one who wanted to build apartments on Daly Street.

Enough is enough. It’s time to reverse the priorities of the last decade and replace them with sensible policies for residents and the environment. New, environmentally friendly houses use less energy and water and improve the health of residents.

At a time when economic woes are throwing Hutt workers onto the dole, a programme of council house building would create jobs and apprenticeship opportunities, especially for our young people.

If elected, VAN pledges to

• Increase UrbanPlus’ target for new houses from 210 by 2013 to 250 by 2013.
  
• Create a long term strategy to restore council housing to 600 units by 2023, creating 1,900 jobs. In the long term these council houses will pay for themselves, through the increased value of Council assets, increased income from rents and other revenue sources. The necessary capital to start building can be borrowed against the future asset.