Nelson Tasman Housing Trust builds six new houses to help meet 'very high' demand

Six new homes have been built by a housing trust in Nelson in a bid to help meet the increasing demand for affordable rentals.

Nelson Tasman Housing Trust director Carrie Mozena said the project on Tōtara Street in Nelson South contains a mix of two, three and four bedroom homes, and they will help to increase access to housing in the community.

"Nelson's housing situation is very, very difficult. Housing unaffordability is very high and the supply of warm, dry, affordable homes is very low."

Ministry of Social Development data shows as of September, there were 294 people in Nelson and 153 people in Tasman on the wait list for public housing.

Mozena said in addition to that, the trust also had over 200 people on its waitlist who were in need of housing. It's research showed there were around 600 more people looking for affordable rental housing who were not on any waitlist.

"It's quite a big problem that has been developing for many years and we are one of the many organisations working to make a difference."

The trust has two rent support schemes - it offers affordable rentals where those on low to moderate incomes are charged rent at 80 per cent of the market rate. It also offers public housing, where residents spend 25 percent of their income on rent, with the remainder subsidised by the Government's income related rent subsidy.

"Both of those make it possible for people on low incomes to stay in housing and get ahead. Some of our residents over the years, maybe four or five, have been able to save up enough to go and buy a home."

The two properties in Tōtara St were purchased from the Nelson City Council in 2022 for $715,000 and Mozena said the total project cost was $4.2 million (inclulding the land) and took two years to bring to completion.

The new homes are earmarked for people on the Housing Register because the development received funding from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. The trust secured further funding from private donors to leverage the government funding.

Mozena said the need for housing was greater than what the government and council could provide.

"For people on the lowest incomes, the private housing market just doesn't work because it is out of reach. We need workers on low incomes to live in our communities - hospitality, horticultural and process workers,

The new tenants include people who have been living in emergency and transitional housing, and unsuitable housing in the private sector.

The homes are located beside Victory Community Centre and Victory Primary School and near a bus route, enabling access to public transport.

The trust was established 20 years ago and now owns 60 homes across the region. It currently has another 18 rental homes under development, due to be completed next year, with plans for another 12 homes.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith said while rents nationally were falling, they had increased by eight per cent in Nelson in the last year and in a region that had relatively low incomes and high costs, people were feeling the squeeze.

The council needed to support the growth of the community housing sector and the continued growth of public housing through Kainga Ora, and it also needed to seriously consider the implications of changes to the Nelson Resource Management Plan to enable more housing options, he said.

In September 2023, Nelson City Council publicly notified plan change 29 - proposing three new residential zones, with a high density zone allowing buildings of up to six storeys to be built without resource consent.

It then received more than 900 submissions on the controversial plan and recommended changes to go before a hearing panel. A decision on the plan change is expected in February.

"We are making progress on the housing issue in Nelson, but we don't have it beat," Smith said.

"I'm very much of a view that it is not a case of greenfield [development] or intensification, with the housing pressure we have in Nelson, we need both."

It was "by accident of history" that Nelson had half the number of Kainga Ora houses per head as the national average and he wanted to see the government continue to deliver public housing, he said.

The council purchased the two Tōtara St properties in the 1990s for the potential relocation of Victory Kindergarten in the event of the Southern Link progressing. However, after endorsement of the Nelson Future Access business case in 2021, it deemed the properties were no longer required and put them up for sale.

Smith said he had asked council officials to review its stock to see if there were other parcels of land that could be used to build public housing along and it would also be exploring grants to further support the housing trust.

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