Tauranga City Council's Strategy, Finance and Risk Committee. Absent: Anne Tolley. Photo / Talia Parker
Tauranga City Council's Strategy, Finance and Risk Committee. Absent: Anne Tolley. Photo / Talia Parker
The housing shortage has been labelled Tauranga's "most significant challenge" by city leaders grappling with a potential future of people forced to live in garages, cars or share rentals with other families.
Tauranga City Council's Strategy, Finance and Risk Committee met on Monday and received a report that assessed the potential economic impacts of housing capacity shortfalls.
The NZ Institute of Economic Research report found that the shortage was expected to balloon to between 7092 and 8993 too few houses in 10 years.
At the meeting, council city and infrastructure manager Andrew Mead said the report picked up on previous work, particularly a report present in March 2020.
Mead said Tauranga's housing shortage had "increased substantively" since then. He said the current shortage was about 4000-5000 homes. Over the next 10 years, the report forecast another 3139 homes would be needed.
Mead said this was "a very significant number" that could "manifest itself in a number of ways", such as people living with their other families, their parents, or living in garages or cars.
Mead said these were "sobering numbers".
"In any scenario, you look at, it looks really bad.
Report authors Ayv Greenway and Andy Mead. Photo / Talia Parker
"What we're going to see is people not moving to Tauranga...[and going elsewhere] to find appropriate housing."
Mead said the Government was "critical to resolving some of the challenges", as the council would need infrastructure and funding tools to unlock growth opportunities.
In its report, the institute predicted the housing shortage would result in 14,951 people being unable to live in Tauranga within 10 years. This translated to a cumulative GDP loss of $1.609bn, which was expected to be primarily felt in the land and housing development sectors and flow through the wider economy.
The median house price was expected to increase from $1m to $1.612m in 10 years, and weekly rent could rise from $620 to $998.
In June, a survey of 185 new builds listed for sale in Tauranga found an average asking price of $1.167 million.
Commissioner Stephen Selwood said the report was "sobering" and "underpins the urgency" of taking action to address the issue.
He said the report "clearly states the size and scale" of the housing supply problem and provides evidence that housing is "the most significant challenge we've got" in Tauranga.
"Keeping on doing what we're doing is not adequate. We need a combined effort across every agency."
Tangata whenua representative Te Pio Kawe said "these figures... are heightened for our Māori communities".
In the Maungatapu community where he lived, "the ability to meet the $1.16 million in terms of purchasing a home is just totally out of their reach".
He said papakāinga housing (clusters of dwellings where whanau live together) was the only affordable option for them, but he said these have lacked infrastructure and capital funding.
"[The] situation for our Māori communities is a lot worse."
Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston said the report's contents were "a huge issue for our community to grapple with".
He said there were housing developments happening in Matamata and surrounding areas - "we are driving people into those communities. Those impacts will be felt in our transport network."
He said there was a lack of alignment around some goals within central government, with a push to reduce emissions and look after biodiversity and water resources.
"All of those [are] awesome and great things that we do need to do - and we also need to provide housing."
He said housing was "a massive challenge, and it's something that we all need to kind of get our heads around".
"It's not just a single solution," he said. "There's multiple things that we need to be doing across the board", including freeing up Māori land for development and building upwards.
"[It's] a massive challenge, but I think we need to be up for it. We need to face it and address it," Rolleston said.
