Housing Minister Megan Woods on ...

• Published date: 20 April 2023
• Publication title: Mountain Scene

DATA shows there are actually more long-term rentals here than there were before Covid

Woods asked Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to pull active bond data for Queenstown in December, 2019, when there were 3885, and in December, 2022, there were 4047.

‘‘So, we’ve actually seen growth over that time,’’ she says.

But, Arrowtown-based regional economist Benje Patterson found when he looked at the data himself recently, in the 12 months to November last year, 100 fewer rentals were available, and in December alone another 30-odd disappeared.

He pointed that out to Woods, who says the 2021 active bonds figure was 4098, ‘‘so there was a slight decrease’’, to which Patterson responded: ‘‘So, 100, 150 people that can’t be housed.’’

Woods: ‘‘That’s very small.

‘‘Why I asked for that data is I wanted to test that assumption — are we seeing a mass exodus of houses because of those changes, and the answer is no.

‘‘[But] it’s not good enough to stand still — that data is basically standing still.

‘‘I think what we have to focus our solutions on is how do we grow that pie?

‘‘Standing still will not do it for Queenstown.’’

Legislation requiring Airbnb data be provided to councils

WOODS isn’t ruling anything out, but notes the tax changes affecting residential visitor accommodation providers will provide ‘‘quite a bit of data’’.

‘‘This is a resort town and it will have accommodation options, but we don’t want that to be at the expense of local people to have what they deserve, and that is a roof over their head that isn’t on four wheels.

‘‘The fact that we can make sure those people that are living here and call Queenstown home have somewhere to live, so we will certainly be picking up that work around short-term stays.

‘‘There are plenty of cities around the world that have had to address this, some have done it really well ... so we’ve got some good experiences to learn from and think about what’s right for Queenstown.’’

Requiring Airbnbs, etc, to meet healthy homes standards

WOODS promises she’ll go away and ‘‘do a bit of work’’ on that idea, but won’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ yet.

‘‘I think we need to put that in the basket of ... things that you can do.

‘‘They’re all levers.

‘‘You don’t want to just grab at them haphazardly, you want to make sure you’ve got a suite of measures that work together well.’’

National legislation, through the Resource Management Act reform, for inclusionary housing

THE government’s ‘‘absolutely not opposed’’ to inclusionary...