A group of students who have worked to make a house once named Dunedin's worst student flat more liveable are set to move on from their project, not long after they managed to get solar panels added to the privately-owned property.
The move will end two years' work at 47 London St, during which the group managed to gain subsidies for insulation, clear the overgrown property, fill skips with rubbish dumped by previous tenants, and more.
The project began as a plan to transform Dunedin's worst flat - so named in a 2012 Otago University Students' Association competition - into a warm, low-energy villa as an example for others to follow.
It also resulted in the launch earlier this year of the Rate my Flat website that allows previous tenants to rate a flat so new renters could be better informed.
The group held a function at their flat late last week, attended by Mayor Dave Cull and Cr Aaron Hawkins.
Flatmate Leander Schulz said the idea was to celebrate what had been achieved in the last two years, an attempt at ''breaking the vicious cycle of bad housing in Dunedin''.
The project had been in collaboration with the landlord through the property manager.
That included the landlord paying for some material and insulation, the pellet fire under a rates scheme, and skips for waste.
The landlord also gave the group three months free rent in return for work, and dropped rent on one room found to have rotten walls and no foundations.
''They put up the cash, we put in the man-hours.
''Boy, there were a lot of hours to be spent.
''There were a whole lot of wins, but this hasn't been an easy ride.''
The group's work led to it being selected for the ''Live the Dream'' social accelerator enterprise programme.
The project also prompted Meridian Energy and CPS Solar to provide the property with subsidised solar panels.
''We entered a competition last year, in which we entered our story,'' Mr Schulz said.
The competition gave money for the best story provided ''in terms of energy efficiency improvement, and bottom-up community initiatives around energy''.
''They really, really liked our story,'' Mr Schulz said.
Now the residents planned to move on, ''but the benefits stay''.
''It is kind of the end from our side, because we've spent almost two years now investing our time and work into it.
''But we are looking for tenants for 2015, so if there's anyone, any group of people out there to take the project forward, that would be absolutely amazing.''
A business model of keeping maintenance to zero, ''while earning a decent profit'', may have continued at the house for at least another 10 years, he said.
That meant tenants getting sick, and taxpayers paying for the result.
''I think in that respect we still did the right thing, because that at least means the tenants that come after us are less likely to get sick.''
Mr Schulz was a supporter of legislation to introduce a warrant of fitness for rental houses.
''The fact the house had water draining into its wall for potentially years, putting the house at the risk of collapse, I think that is a very strong lesson in favour of a warrant of fitness.''
Until legislation was brought in, he said the group had ''identified a mechanism of how tenants can be really pro-active, and kind of nag their landlady or landlord to really make improvements.
''It shouldn't be the responsibility of tenants. but until there's a warrant of fitness, we just have to be a bit pro-active about it.''
Government Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Jo Goodhew yesterday announced Rate my Flat was one of 11 teams that would take part in a pilot programme to support new social enterprise start-ups.
Team members would fly to Auckland next week for their first workshop, where the focus would be on growing the website.
