Short-term rentals in Nelson are aggravating the city’s housing problems as landlords cash in on summer prices, housing advocates say.
Carrie Mozena from the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust said along with a general shortage of affordable housing, an increasing number of tenants were faced with landlords insisting on short-term leases during the year.
She said the Housing Trust had been made aware of cases where tenants had been booted out in November, so landlords could use properties as a short-term summer rentals with much bigger rents.
Haven Property Management’s Jeanette Aspin said while she hadn’t seen cases of landlords booting tenants out for the summer, the company was often approached by retired European or British couples who only lived in New Zealand for half the year.
Aspin said the company had observed how stressful and expensive it was for tenants having to move after a short time, and as of last year Haven Property Management only dealt with leases of 12 months or longer.
Summit Area Manager Steph Monopoli said her property managers didn’t deal with short-term rentals, and she hadn’t heard of cases where landlords were kicking tenants out for the summer.
Bayleys Property Manager Rob Vining said he hadn’t heard of landlords switching between short and long-term leases on the same property, as they were quite different propositions.
Vining said whether or not there were cases of short-term rentals pushing people out of tenancy situations, it was clear there was a housing demand issue.
The lower end of the market was struggling because house prices and rents had gone up.
(The Nelson Mail, Monday, February 6th, 2017)
After years of planning, the multimillion-dollar upgrade of Queen St in Richmond is under way.
Tasman mayor Richard Kempthorne and some key Tasman District Council staff were on site this morning as the fencing was erected for the first stage of the more than $11m upgrade.
The work is expected to take about 13 months to complete – from now until December and then from February 2018 to April 2018.
The upgrade of the main street is part of a wider central Richmond infrastructure project for which TDC has budgeted $26.8m in its 2015-25 Long Term Plan.
Kempthorne said it was the single largest engineering project the council had undertaken, spurred on by floods that devastated the central business district in 2011 and 2013.
Most of the cost of the Queen St upgrade is associated with work below the ground, including the replacement of ageing pipes, such as a 50-year-old water main – the first job of the project.
Contractor Hawkins Infrastructure plans to replace the entire length of the fragile asbestos cement water pipe that runs from Gladstone Rd to the Wensley Rd roundabout before completing the rest of the upgrade in six staged sections.
Along with the water pipe, stormwater and sewer lines are set to be replaced along with an upgrade of power and communication services, planning for which had involved close liaison with Network Tasman and Chorus.
(The Nelson Mail, Tuesday, February 7th, 2017)
Fees for building a new home in Tasman district are set to rise from March 1.
The way those fees are calculated will also change. From next month , the fees will be based on the assessed value of the building work, not the floor area of the house.
For instance, the fee is now $3888 for a single-storey home of more than 250 square metres. From March 1, the fee for that same house – with a likely assessed building value of between $300,001 and $499,999 – will be $4500.
The fee for new dwellings with a value up to $200,000 will be $2900 while those with a building value of between $201,000 and $300,000 will attract a fee of $3700. Any new homes or commercial builds with a value of between $500,000 and $1 million will draw a fee of $6950, up from $6615.
Environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said the fee increase was to help bridge an expected $246,000 deficit, which is growing partly as a result of an increased workload with consents for new dwellings up 24 per cent compared with the past year.
Additional staff had been employed to cope with the extra work while still achieving about 98 per cent compliance with processing building consents within the 20 working day statutory time frame.
The building fees had not changed since January 2016 and it was ‘‘appropriate that we look at them on an annual basis’’.
While there was an expected overall increase of about 10 per cent, some fees will drop from March 1, particularly for low-value building work up to $11,000. The council was also looking at entering a memorandum of understanding with building companies to offer a ‘‘simplified fee structure in return for improved quality performance’’.
Bush-King said the new fees and the changed method of calculation would align Tasman district with Nelson city and Marlborough district councils.
(The Nelson Mail, Saturday, February 11th, 2017)
My mind's
my kingdom.
Francis Quarles