Years of leaks in Housing NZ apartment make it uninhabitable

Leaks at Hobson Gardens are so bad that unit 8E has been deemed uninhabitable until the entire twin-block tower is fixed. Photo / Kenny Rodger

Housing New Zealand has stopped tenanting a leaky unit in the defective Hobson Gardens.

Leaks are so bad that unit 8E is deemed uninhabitable until the entire twin-block tower is fixed.

One resident said the unit had been empty for some years because the state organisation couldn't tenant it due to health and safety issues. Water ingress is so serious that the state has been forced to temporarily condemn its own place.

The owners' committee was spurred on to take action to get the huge block fixed when it realised the seriousness of problems with one of two apartments Housing NZ Corporation has in the block.

"Some owners wanted to stick their heads in the sand and ignore this, until Housing NZ's rep poked his head above the parapet and said that if we didn't act as a body corporate to fix the block, they'd take action against us. And you know how deep the state's pockets are," said one worried resident.

Of the 97 apartments in the block which straddles a site between Hobson St and Nelson St near Spaghetti Junction, owners said it was only the Housing NZ Corp unit which could not be tenanted. Water is sucked in through defective cladding at the massive block.

Pools of moisture gather in the middle of the unit, a resident said.

"Essentially water pools in the middle of one of the rooms because there's a slope on the floor and it runs down into that," he said.

The state authority houses thousands of New Zealanders and owns 69,000 residential properties.

A corporation spokeswoman said that because the state had so many places, it was inevitable some would suffer problems.

"We can be as much a victim of these things as anyone else," she said.

A single unit in such a large twin-block complex could not be fixed without repairs being carried out to the entire complex, she said.

Housing New Zealand owns 2 of the apartments. The complex has been identified with weathertightness issues and all owners have to follow the body corporate processes.

Denise Fink, Housing NZ's Auckland regional manager, said her organisation supported the approach taken by the body corporate to pursue legal action so all owners could get a resolution.

"Housing NZ owns just under 70,000 properties and fortunately we have a very small number of homes that face issues with weathertightness.

"It is difficult to say how much rent Housing NZ is losing by not tenanting the property."