Housing remains the key focus for Nelson MP

Housing remains the top issue in the Nelson electorate, says its MP, Rachel Boyack.

‘‘Absolutely No 1,’’ she said in an interview with The Nelson Mail ahead of a speech on Wednesday evening to the Rotary Club of Nelson West.

A rise in social housing numbers would help, she said. The Nelson Tasman Housing Trust, which completed six new homes in December, aims to increase its properties from 43 to 100 properties over five years.

Government changes around the structure of Income-Related Rent Subsidy payments would help to give housing providers such as the trust more financial certainty, which they could ‘‘take to the bank’’, Boyack said.

She anticipated some news ‘‘soon’’ about the $12 million Nelson City Council housing reserve.

Public housing was another big piece of the puzzle, and Kāinga Ora had been building up capability around the country, Boyack said.

‘‘We’ve actually got the people working in the [Nelson] region now for Kāinga Ora. I am anticipating that we will see some ideas and plans come through [in 2022].’’

For the homeless, the Salvation Army-led multi-agency Housing First Nelson Tasman scheme was ‘‘doing well ... going from strength to strength’’, she said.

Temporary and transitional housing was good, but people could get stuck without enough social or public homes available, Boyack said. ‘‘Where I’m seeing the bottleneck at the moment in Nelson is in that temporary, transitional housing space.’’

Emergency housing also needed improvement, for men and women, she said. Attempts had been made ‘‘for decades’’ to get emergency housing set up for women.

The closure of the Nelson Night Shelter for men gave other agencies the opportunity to look at what an emergency housing option might look like ‘‘that could work for men and women’’, she said.

Work to help people get into the fast-growing housing market would continue, such as Government grants into the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund. Any recipients of the funds had to have some affordable homes in the associated developments, Boyack said.

The Government was also ‘‘powering on’’ with reform of the Resource Management Act, enabling people to ‘‘subdivide more easily and build higher more easily’’.

Overall for housing, the goal was to ‘‘keep increasing supply’’, she said.

While the numbers of new dwellings had been good in Tasman District, ‘‘I think we need to do more in Nelson’’.

‘‘I do hear feedback from people in the industry and homeowners that they do find Nelson City [Council] challenging to get plans through, and that’s feedback I give them regularly,’’ Boyack said.

Long-term improvement in the affordability of homes for firsttime buyers was a must, she said. ‘‘We’ve got to get houses on the market in that range.’’

The planned revamp of Nelson Hospital and local transport were two other key issues Boyack raised with the Mail and in her Rotary speech, pointing to the ‘‘Richmond traffic mess’’ in particular.

While the roading problems around Nelson were well known, and the Nelson Future Access Study Business Case had been supported by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and the city council, the issues at Richmond were not ‘‘on the radar’’ to the same extent, Boyack said. In her view, the problems at Richmond were worse, and she mentioned it to her Government colleagues at every opportunity.

For Boyack, a major highlight of 2021 was helping to get a family out of Afghanistan and to Nelson.

‘‘That was a really difficult evacuation. Alongside some amazing community advocates, we put in a number of hours and a lot of energy to bring a couple of New Zealanders home and ensure their family were with them, too.’’

The Covid-19 pandemic had been both the lowlight and a highlight of the year, she said. While the pandemic had taken time away from other issues, it had also brought out the best in many people.

‘‘We’ve seen some remarkable acts of kindness, of selflessness ... people getting food to each other [and] people coming forward to get tested,’’ Boyack said, before singling out vaccinators, staff at Covid-19 testing stations, and contact tracers.

‘‘They’re working long hours, working in hot conditions at the moment. They’re saving lives.’’

‘‘We’ve got to get [affordable] houses on the market.’’ Nelson MP Rachel Boyack