Good tenants’ lose home

Rodney Hide is disgusted by Housing New Zealand’s treatment of the long-time tenants of this now-vandalised state house. Picture / Greg Bowker

The state home of a family who moved out after 20 years so it could be redeveloped has been vandalised while Housing NZ waited for resource consents for its plans to put two houses on the section.

The couple - in their 60s - were not told of changes to HNZ's plans in October that meant the house would be taken from the site in Holbrook St, Avondale, and they could not move back in.

The redevelopment was part of Housing New Zealand's policy of increasing the number of Auckland homes by 2400 before 2007. One strategy was to redevelop existing properties with large sections.

Act Party leader Rodney Hide said he was disgusted with HNZ's neglect of the property and the breakdown in communication between the family and the state agency about the future of their home.

It was first brought to his attention by neighbours concerned about the vandalism.

Mr Hide said it had been graffitied and broken into and street kids had been using it. A car had been burned in the yard.

"It is destruction of a home. Here are people who have lived there, made it their home and looked after it carefully for 20 years. Then HNZ shunts them out into a place that isn't as good, and leaves their home to go to wrack and ruin, without any care.

"Is this how HNZ treats its good tenants?"

The couple were told in October 2003 of plans to move their house to the back of the section so another could be built in front of it.

In December 2004 the couple moved into a smaller unit nearby with their three adult children.

However, the initial plans were shelved after Housing NZ discovered last October that it could not get consent to move the house because of stormwater drainage problems.

Instead it was waiting for consents to build two new houses on the section. It planned then to move the original house to the East Coast for the rural housing programme and refurbish it.

The couple found out their house would be removed only after the Herald's inquiries.

A spokeswoman said HNZ regretted the apparent breakdown in communication and said the agency would meet soon to discuss options with the family.

She said Housing NZ had removed the windows and boarded the gaps up to help stop vandalism and was still mowing the lawns.

The delay in the development was due to the wait for the revised resource consents, filed last October, to be processed.