Dunedin and Wellington city councils are working on a rental warrant of fitness, which will require basic standards to be met in rental properties.
They are being helped by the He Kainga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme based at the University of Otago (Wellington campus), which has been funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand to study the effects of introducing a rental housing WoF.
A rental WoF would require basic standards for things like ventilation, heating, safety and hygiene in a rental property.
The Government recently moved to require insulation and smoke alarms in all rentals, but University of Otago researcher Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard said more comprehensive measures were needed.
"The new requirements are a good start, but lack of insulation and smoke alarms aren't the only health risks in homes. We also need basic standards for the other things like ventilation, heating and safety," she said.
Dunedin City Council hopes the rental WoF can help to address the approximately 18,000 homes in the city which are not warm or dry enough to keep people healthy and comfortable at a reasonable cost.
"We know that families who live in poor quality housing spend a high proportion of their money on energy bills," Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said. "Those unable to afford to heat their home sufficiently suffer poor health outcomes as a result.
"Our city has an ambitious goal of making sure that everyone in Dunedin lives in a warm and cosy home by 2015. Having a rental warrant of fitness or minimum standards for rental housing would be a very positive step towards this goal," he said.
The timing of the WoF's introduction remains unconfirmed.
Wellington City Mayor Celia Wade-Brown sees it as part of a range of initiatives to increase the quality and affordability of housing.
"We must increase the quality and affordability of our housing, particularly for vulnerable people including our students, frail elderly, and young entrepreneurs and families dependent on rental housing.
"Sub-standard housing that fails to meet basic health and safety standards is just not acceptable," she said.
Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman of the University of Otago (Wellington campus) said the poor quality of rental housing contributed to New Zealand's "shocking" child health figures and affected the educational achievement of some children.
"This cumulative disadvantage can only be addressed by raising the quality of all rental housing by working out the practicalities and business case for introducing a rental warrant of fitness," she said.
He Kainga Oranga will measure how a WoF affects the rental market and tenant health in Wellington and Dunedin, compared with control cities Lower Hutt and Invercargill, which are not planning to introduce a rental WOF at this stage.
Nearly half of all New Zealanders live in rental accommodation, which is on average older than owner-occupied dwellings, built to older less-stringent building codes, and less well maintained.
He Kainga Oranga is planning to complete its research in time to inform government policy before insulation and smoke alarms become mandatory for all rentals in 2019.
In addition to health and economic outcomes, the research will look at landlord experiences, including whether the WoF helps landlords identify priorities for maintenance and upgrades.
