A Rotorua doctor says if there was one thing she could change to improve health in the district it would be warm, dry housing.
Her comments come as an assessment of Rotorua homes over the past three years reveals 20 per cent are in a "seriously bad", unacceptable or "barely acceptable" condition and the assessment's findings will be presented to the Rotorua Lakes Council at an Operations and Monitoring Committee meeting tomorrow. However, 62.5 per cent are in good condition and a further 12 per cent are in "excellent" condition.
Three Lakes Medical Centre general practitioner Cate Mills said housing was a "priority issue for health".
"No other single intervention will have as much of an impact as improving housing.
Undertaken by Sustainability Options, the Rotorua Home Performance Advisory Service Annual Report stated it assessed 154 homes in the year to July 2020. The organisation also provided cumulative data on the 490 homes it had assessed since 2017.
The homes assessed in 2019-2020 had been referred by the Government's Healthy Homes Initiatives, self-referral and other organisations such as Te Puni Kōkiri.
An assessment of homes across Rotorua has been conducted over the past three years to gauge their condition. Photo / File
The survey covered a "great spread across the district", the report said. The areas with the most assessments were Western Heights and Koutu with 15 each, followed by Owhata on 11.
The houses ranged in age from 1920s builds to the 2000s, with 1960s builds most common, and the majority of houses - 62 per cent - had three bedrooms, with an occupancy range of zero people to 15.
The home with the highest number of bedrooms was six.
Fifteen per cent were considered "over-occupied" where a single bedroom was occupied by more than two people, and 32 per cent were considered "under-occupied" where one bedroom was not occupied.
Fifty-four per cent of homes required action on their ground moisture barrier, 40 per cent needed work on underfloor insulation and 31 per cent needed attention to ceiling insulation.
"The majority of homes - 67 per cent - were in reasonable condition," the report said.
"Ten per cent were in excellent condition."
Two per cent were not acceptable, requiring "significant work" and 15 per cent "barely acceptable", requiring a range of recommendations to be implemented.
Forty per cent of the homes assessed had "vulnerable" occupants - babies and the elderly - while a further 26 per cent had "at-risk" occupants - young children.
Many of the occupants - 72 per cent - were considered to be low-income households, and 2 per cent were high-income. Income was estimated based on discussions with families and their community services card status.
The most common action for homes' exteriors recommended to households was work on their ground vapour barrier, the report said. That made up 54 per cent of recommendations.
The most common recommended action for the interior of homes was draught-proofing at 52 per cent, closely followed by bathroom ventilation at 48 per cent.
Thirty-seven per cent of the homes did not have adequate heating, and 33 per cent had mould.
Seventy-three per cent of 60 respondents said they had since taken action based on the service's recommendation. Twelve per cent said they had not yet taken action but intended to. The most common action was to install or improve insulation.
RentAssured co-owner and Rotorua Property Investors Association president Debbie Van Den Broek said the properties she saw nowadays were warm, dry and up to standard.
"Low-price shoddy rentals have disappeared. That's why rents have gone up in Rotorua."
Debbie van Den Broek. Photo / File
She said the condition of rental homes in Rotorua was "definitely on the up" because legislation had forced "bad landlords to up their game".
She said homes found to be in bad condition had "slipped through" and could be owner-occupied.
