Government to make Healthy Homes extension announcement for Kāinga Ora and private landlords

The Government is making an announcement this morning on an extension to Healthy Homes deadlines. Photo / Supplied

The Government is this morning making an announcement on whether an extension will be granted for state landlord Kāinga Ora and private landlords in meeting their Healthy Homes deadlines.

It comes after last week the Act Party forced the Government to reveal an extension for the state landlord to meet its deadline was “under active Cabinet consideration”.

The Government then quickly followed up to confirm that extension was to cover the private sector also. The matter was considered at Cabinet on Monday.

At a post-Cabinet press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to say what had been decided, saying she would leave it to Housing Minister Megan Woods. Ardern also deferred questions around the timing of the announcements, and whether extensions were planned for all landlords initially or just for Kāinga Ora, as claimed by Act.

Kāinga Ora and registered community housing providers have until July 1 next year to ensure its 65,000 public homes covered by the standards meet the requirements, including minimum levels of heating, insulation and ventilation.

The private sector has been required to meet the standards within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy from July last year. This has excluded those on long-term tenancies or properties meeting certain conditions.

All rentals must meet the standards by July 1, 2024.

Extensions were being considered to account for disruptions due to Covid-19 and supply-chain issues, which Kāinga Ora says set back its renovation programme by six months.

Kāinga Ora has been under pressure over the rate at which it has been renovating its properties, many of those home to some of the country’s most vulnerable residents, with its programme not immune to Covid restrictions and supply issues hitting the wider building industry.

In July last year, just one in five met the standards. In July this year, it was up to just over 50 per cent.

Kāinga Ora maintenance contracting and asset services director Andrew Booker told the Herald last week 68 per cent of their properties now met the standards - 43,775 homes. Just over 10,600 homes were currently being renovated.

This meant 84 per cent of Kāinga Ora homes either met the Healthy Homes Standards or had work in progress to meet them.

The delivery rate had increased from 180 homes a week in June last year to 600 homes a week in October 2022.

However, even at that high rate of delivery, the figures indicated Kāinga Ora would miss its target by several thousand properties.

Booker did not directly answer questions if they were committed to the July 1, 2023, deadline, instead saying there were “working at pace” and “committed to completing the work as quickly as possible”.

Booker said the programme had started in December 2019, just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

They estimated 950,000 hours of work would be required to meet the standards, but Covid restrictions meant they lost about 240,000 of those hours over the past two years, or six months’ work.

Inspection company All Clear Group NZ’s co-founder Adam Gordon told the Herald the private sector was “well on its way” to meeting standards by 2024.

Gordon said the proportion was steadily growing as tenancies were renewed.

Speaking for the professionally managed private rental market, Gordon said there were high levels of compliance and understanding about why the changes needed to happen.

However, he said there was understood to be lower compliance in the independent landlord sector, which made up the bulk of the roughly 680,000 private rentals.

While all private rentals must now comply within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy, the Government is not collecting data on how many rentals are compliant with its Healthy Homes standards. It also does not require third parties to assess if properties meet the standards.

The Green Party has been advocating for a Warrant of Fitness to ensure rental homes were meeting standards and a register of landlords and property managers.