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Government announcements to make more land available to reduce house prices may backfire in Gisborne according to a District Councillor.

Manu Caddie said there are more than 40 empty state houses in Kaiti alone, and he knows of situations in his neighbourhood where 12 people are living in a one bedroom flat. “This is a bizarre situation when there are half a dozen empty three and four bedroom state houses in the same street that are being vandalised since the tenants were moved out by Housing New Zealand.”

“This is an increasingly common situation since the government reduced eligibility for public housing. We don’t have a housing shortage in Gisborne, we have a logic shortage. One size fits all policies are the problem with central government, our situation is the opposite of Auckland but policy is being designed for the Auckland situation and applied here.”

“Housing materials and construction are a much higher proportion of costs in the Gisborne District, we don’t have a land shortage issue like Auckland. Making it easier to expand the city boundaries will not make it easier for low income families on the East Coast to afford safe and healthy housing” said Mr Caddie. “If the government was serious about finding policy to make housing affordable they would introduce a capital gains tax or other mechanisms to put a damper on the rampant speculation that ramps up property prices.”

Mr Caddie is sceptical about introducing income related rents for private rentals. “That would see a massive transfer of taxes to landlords at the same time as the government is also planning to privatise a large proportion of the public housing stock by transferring state houses to ‘social housing providers’.

Mr Caddie recently wrote on behalf of the Tairāwhiti Housing Advisory Group to the Minister of Social Development requesting a review of the Accommodation Supplement that is supposed to help tenants with rents relative to the average housing costs in their region. Gisborne residents are on a lower rate of subsidy than those who live in regions where the average rental price is lower. Paula Bennett said in a letter that the Ministry would not be reviewing Accommodation Supplement in Gisborne because it would be inappropriate to focus on only one region. The Tairāwhiti Housing Advisory Group agreed last week to ask Anne Tolley and Parekura Horomia to take up this issue on behalf of the region they represent.