Greens get under roof of govt’s granny flat

The coalition government's proposed changes to building consents on homes under 60 square metres in certain areas have been welcomed by the opposition.

The new policy, announced on Monday, makes it easier to construct granny flats, increasing the supply of affordable homes.

The Green Party says while the proposal allows Kiwis to “build housing as a right, the scale of housing that we need will not be met by building granny flats.

Greens housing spokesperson, Tamatha Paul, told Pacific Mornings’ William Terite that overcrowding in New Zealand, particularly in our Māori and Pacific communities, was rampant, adding it was a symptom of the housing crisis across the country.

The number of Pacific homeowners has almost halved since the 1980s which has left many forced to rent.

Watch Tamatha Paul's full interview below.

Paul said the priority should be on building more public housing as the private rental market was inaccessible for Māori and Pacific people.

She added the scrapping of the first home grant scheme, which had helped Māori and Pasifika buy property, further discouraged them from entering the housing market.

“Kainga Ora has paused a lot of its massive developments in order for Kainga Ora to be reviewed and community housing providers have not been provided the certainty in order to lock in sustainable funding into the future.

“If you look at just in 1991, there was enough public housing to clear the waitlist in relation to the population at the time, as well as having a surplus of almost 10,000 houses in our country.

“We used to be able to build and provide the housing that our country needs. We're not so keen to do that anymore out of this kind of belief that more people should move into the private rental market, which we know is not accessible for many of our whānau.

“Sometimes a landlord will just look at your last name and you’re automatically out of the running for that house.”

Paul said the Greens would create a fairer balance for landlords and tenants by introducing a system like the ‘rental warrant of fitness’ yearly checks on the properties to ensure they were fit to live in.

“Our goal at the end of the day would be to meet the needs of all of the thousands of families who are currently living in motels and living in precarious housing situations, even living on the streets, getting that housing built so that we can get people into warm, safe and affordable homes.”