25 Apr - 1 May
LOCALLY OWNED SINCE FOREVER
No 898
LAKES WEEKLY BULLETIN
JO
BS
105 IN SI
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Time to start pulling levers, Minister Drive around Queenstown late at night and see how many people are sleeping in their cars. That was the suggestion to Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods from some members of the Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce last week, when the Minister came to town for talks with business leaders, politicians and bureaucrats about the local housing crisis. I might be doing her a disservice here, but I doubt she took them up on their offer. That’s a shame because when Cabinet is discussing the Residential Tenancy Act, Healthy Homes Standards, the mortgage interest-deductibility and other legislation that has made it less attractive for property owners to rent out rooms and houses, it would be good for her to be able to picture some of the people at the sharp end. They could have told her what it’s like to work a ten-hour shift in hospo, in the kitchens or behind a bar, or in retail or the tourism industry, then drive your car out to 12 Mile, flatten the back seat and get in your sleeping bag. Or what it’s like to sleep in a tent as the temperature plummets, or to rely on the generosity of friends for a couch or a floor. They could have told her what it’s like to stand in a line at a rental house showing, feeling guilty about trying to persuade the rental agent to pick you, because there’s also families with young children wanting to rent the property. Those were some of the stories from people at last month’s passionate housing protest, organised by Hannah Sullivan and Lindsay Waterfield. On the whole, the Minister appeared focused on the long-term problem of affordable housing in the district, while everyone else in the room was looking for solutions to the short-term crisis of people having nowhere to live, affordable or not. She only mentioned rentals a couple of times during her Chamber speech, to point out we now have more rentals than we did pre-Covid. We do, slightly, but also have more people in town on the whole. And there are far fewer backpacker hostel beds, which provided some respite. By the end of the Q&A session, however, the Minister appeared to have got the message. Her problem now will be finding the right lever to pull. While the legislation mentioned above has contributed to the problem, it is all well-intentioned. We don’t want people living in damp, cold houses, or kicked out on a whim with a few weeks’ notice. Neither do we want house prices to be unaffordable because anyone with a bit of capital snaps up anything on the market, pricing out first-time buyers. But, when you have people working full-time jobs getting paid above the living wage, and they are effectively homeless, something has to change quickly. Longer term, a nationwide limit on Airbnb might help. Or, what about a rule that whole houses can only be Airbnb’d if they’ve been let out as rentals for three years?
It’s been a busy summer for search and rescue volunteers with increased call outs with more people exploring the great outdoors. Pictured is some of Wakatipu Search and Rescue volunteers. See story on page 17.
Paul Taylor
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