In the absence of a magic wand... For those that aren’t members of the Queenstown Business Chamber (shameless ‘join’ plug), this opportunity to update you all on what we’re doing re housing, specifically rental housing is timely. The small actions of many can add up to change, but some big wins in this space are long overdue. Last week – Queenstown Business wrote to the people with the levers (ie; government) with some urgent recommendations on immediate and longer-term solutions. For avoidance of doubt, we are not against long-term secure tenancies and totally supportive of the good work the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust do in this space, including around affordable housing. Our recommendations are focused on what could be done around worker rental accommodation right now and into the future. They were reached through input from many of you in the housing actions we’ve taken to date. A couple the suggestions include: • Short-term: Govt must revisit the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) and offer a return to pure fixed term leases for say 6/9/12 months. We have seasonality in our workforce, and mid-term fixed term leases are a big gap, and necessary to have any chance of opening up the 27% of homes that sit vacant; • Medium – longer term: We desperately need build to rent worker accommodation and government needs to remove barriers to enable this class of development. You can read our recommendations on the Advocacy section of our website. It is important that existing renters are not impacted, so perhaps one way to ensure this is by only allowing fixed term tenancies of 12 months and under on those properties that are currently vacant or used as short-term peer to peer accommodation? Maybe this could be a temporary emergency response, over the next year or two perhaps, while build-to-rent accommodation is actually built? Any other ideas out there? On a somewhat related sidenote, I was heading to the office last week and there was this amazing warm glow on the Remarks, along with a full moon. It was Tuesday, 820am’ish. I hope others saw that too? People were on the side of the road taking photos and I thought ‘that is just amazing, I need to take a picture’. Anyway, the pictures don’t do it justice, not my skill, but the thought stayed with me. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and a lot of our problems are because of just that. People want to be here and make it their home. An important thing to remember. To help those that are being impacted by this housing crisis here are some resources that might assist: Queenstown Business worker accommodation online toolkit: https://queenstownchamber.org.nz/worker-accommodation-online-toolkit Winter Manaaki https://www.qldc.govt.nz/community/winter-manaaki
11 Jul - 17 Jul
LOCALLY OWNED SINCE FOREVER
No 909
LAKES WEEKLY BULLETIN
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Kath Buttar, QLDC waste minimisation officer, walks the walk- at the reusable produce bag giveaway held recently at New World Remarkables Park. As part of the Plastic Free July. See Community Notes for more.
ARE YOU HUNGRY ? SCAN ME TO ORDER
Sharon Fifield, Chief Executive Queenstown Business, Chamber of Commerce
REMARKABLES PARK 12 HAWTHORNE DRIVE, FRANKTON P : 03 441 4798
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