Community housing back on the agenda

Published: 28 February 2024

Napier City Council is reopening the conversation about its community housing portfolio as part of public consultation on its draft Three-Year Plan.

The Council owns 377 community housing units in 12 villages. Of those, 304 are categorised as retirement housing and 73 as social housing.

Mayor Kirsten Wise explains the importance of rethinking Council’s approach to its housing.

“In 2022, we made the call to keep our full portfolio intact, we raised rents but it’s not enough to keep up with maintenance,” says Mayor Wise. “This hasn’t been enough to maintain and operate the villages without putting additional costs onto the rest of the community.”

Costs across the board have been impacted by cyclone recovery, and increases in labour, materials and insurances. Current forecasts indicate a 2.6% rates increase every year across the board to maintain and operate the housing portfolio in its existing model.

“We are now putting housing back on the table,” Mayor Wise says. “But whatever decision is made we have key things that are most important to us including making sure our current tenants have a home, focusing on retirement housing over social housing, and ensuring social housing is looked after by experts in that area.

“We do want to make sure there is as little financial pressure as possible on our community and on our tenants, and we want to be able to invest in our housing portfolio to make sure it’s fit for our tenants now and in the future.”

The public are being invited to share their views on Council’s housing portfolio from 25 March through sayitnapier.nz or via Taradale and Napier Libraries and the Customer Service Centre in Napier.

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