Push for housing solutions

October's General Election could delay any solutions to Queenstown's rental housing crisis, fears Chamber of Commerce boss Sharon Fifield.
Fifield and Chamber board chair Angela Spackman wrote to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins last week calling for urgent action to help workers who can't find a place to live in the town.
Since the tourism industry got back up to speed following the pandemic and the workers returned, it has been the most pressing problem facing many of the Chamber's 600 business members, Fifield tells the PM.
The workers themselves face a battle for the dwindling number of rentals on the market, or alternatively staying in overcrowded properties, with friends, or living in their cars through freezing winter temperatures. The problem is so acute, it is once again making international headlines, with a 1200-word article in the UK's Guardian newspaper last week.
The letter, also sent to Minister of Housing, Dr Megan Woods, Queenstown's mayor Glyn Lewers, and local council officials, sets out some actions that could be taken.
Short-term measures include giving landlords the ability to terminate a lease without reason within a set period, deferring the deadline to meet Healthy Home standards, and reinstating interest deductibility for rental properties.
However, those measures have been announced, effectively, as National Party election pledges in recent months, which could see Hipkins and Woods unwilling to concede ground in the run up to the election.
"I am concerned that nothing will happen quickly," Fifield says. "I do think it's going to be a big election topic.
"I guess the frustration for us is the current government is pretty focused on affordable housing and homes. Yes, that's an issue but it's not what we're really talking about here.
"Our region has a specific rental accommodation issue and so we're really trying to highlight that. It comes back to the fact these broad-brush policies, across really diverse regions and economies, don't work for Queenstown and have negative consequences."
Fifield says one of the key statistics is that 27% of Queenstown's housing stock sits vacant. Reintroducing the 'no cause termination clause' to the Residential Tenancy Act would enable people with holiday homes to let them out to seasonal workers.
"We're absolutely not against secure long-term tenancies and I can see what the Government wants to achieve," she says.
"But it's just really around flexibility. We're hearing from property managers that lots of workers don't want a long-term tenancy, they just need somewhere to live while on a working holiday or short-term visa. That's the supply we're really missing at the moment."
The Chamber also supports the push for Healthy Homes Standards, but says the reality is it's very costly for some potential rental stock.
"The perverse effect of this law is that houses that are not compliant, but are still houses, sit empty while people in our district sleep in cars," the letter reads.
Fifield says temporary relief could be provided by allowing new tenancies to be brought up to standard by the overall deadline of July 2025, rather than within 120 days.
Longer term, the Chamber believes there needs to be more support and incentives for scaled ‘build to rent’ developments.
That includes enabling density, introducing GST breaks, underwriting some developments, and treating build-to-rent as its own class of commercial development (rather than residential). That would enable overseas investors to invest, without breaching the Overseas Investment rules.
Hipkins was due to speak to Chamber members on his visit late last month to open the streetscapes project, but his flight was cancelled due to fog.
"I think he needs to get down here pre-election," Fifield says. "I'm hopeful there will be changes, but I'm also realistic. I can see this becoming an election issue."