The lack of affordable housing could put the brakes on economic growth in Central Otago.
The Central Otago District Council (CODC) business development manager Jonathan Gadd presented a report to the CODC yesterday outlining the council's options for helping to ensure service workers and young families could become a part of the Central Otago community.
The availability of affordable housing in Cromwell and Alexandra has been highlighted as a key contributor to the overall strength of the community.
While councillors noted that the lack of affordable housing was not unique to Central Otago, Mr Gadd pointed out people in Alexandra, in particular, had much lower incomes and the cost of housing was very high.
The absence of affordable housing for low to moderate income earners would lead to increasing shortages of both skilled and unskilled workers, and was of real concern Mr Gadd said.
There were 370 out of 5200 households in Alexandra, Cromwell or surrounds who potentially would find the typical house in those areas unaffordable.
That was based on the number of couples or families of working age living in those areas, who rented and had incomes of less than $70,000.
More families were moving to the district every year who would be affected by housing affordability.
The threshold of affordability for low to medium income earners in Central Otago was $250,000 Mr Gadd said. Cr Gordon Stewart, a Cromwell real estate agent, said the council had been selling land for development and had put no restrictions on it which could have encouraged affordable housing.
He said Cromwell had been cleared out of residential land and the only houses available there were all over $300,000.
The Affordable Housing Territorial Authorities Enabling Bill which had just gone before Parliament could help councils deal with the affordable housing shortage by helping to shortcut the resource management process but Mr Gadd was unsure what impact, if any, it would have.
He said the scope of the legislation was somewhat limited for Central Otago, as the application of enforced affordability for housing developments was unlikely to have a large impact.
That was due to the relatively small number of large scale developments that would provide meaningful numbers of affordable houses.
Councillors discussed the number of employers who provided housing for their workers and mention was made of the farmers who had supplied workers with houses for more than 150 years.
While agreeing it was not the council's responsibility to provide affordable housing, councillors approved the establishment of an affordable housing community group to further explore and develop the outcomes for affordable housing in Central Otago. The group would be established by June this year.
Cr Lynley Claridge will represent the council on the group. Staff resources to work with the group were also approved.
