Greens promise to cap rent rises at 2 percent a year

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Greens have launched their housing policy for the election, promising legislation to limit rent rises at 2 percent a year.

No-cause evictions would also be scrapped, and a rental Warrant of Fitness and register of landlords and property managers introduced.

Investment in building public housing and ending homelessness would also be increased.

The ‘A home for everybody’ policy was launched by the party co-leaders and local MP Tamatha Paul at a rental home in Wellington on Wednesday afternoon.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said with rental costs increasing from 19 percent of incomes in 1988 to 30 percent in 2022, it was time for housing to be treated as a human right.

“In a country like Aotearoa, with our wealth of resources and skills, there is no excuse for people to go without a decent home, let along any home at all.”

Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the Greens would build tens of thousands more public homes and support councils and community providers to do the same, stimulating local economies and creating jobs while curbing homelessness and waiting lists.

“This isn’t rocket science,” she said. “Mass building of public housing almost 100 years ago led to decades of stable, affordable homes for New Zealanders.

“Other countries have shown how sensible, practical policies to strengthen renters’ rights and common sense tax settings to stop housing being treated as a state-sanctioned casino means more affordable homes.”

A policy document outlined:

• A Renters’ Rights Bill to cap rent increases at no more than 2 percent a year, end no-cause evictions, and bring in a Rental Warrant of Fitness
• Create a national register of all landlords, property managers and boarding houses, introducing accreditation and regulatory compliance
• Build tens of thousands more public homes, and increase long-term funding for councils and community housing providers
• Invest in domestic pre-fabrication and offsite manufacturing
• Ensure Kāinga Ora and community housing providers have enough funding to build enough accessible housing to meet the needs of disabled people, including stronger regulation for universally designed house building
• Create a ‘Duty to Assist’ law placing a legal duty on agencies to ensure people have the housing they need
• Reverse the government’s changes to emergency accommodation eligibility, and ensure same-day emergency housing is available until the person has access to suitable housing without going into debt
• Increase funding for mental health, alcohol and addiction, budgeting, food and other community services
• Ensure planning laws enable house building in towns and cities connected to public transport, shops and community facilities
• Require councils to enable development capacity for long-term population growth
• Remove barriers to Māori building on their own land and scale up Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga programme
• Reverse National’s changes to interest deductability for landlords

The party at the last election also campaigned on many of these measures, but the previous rent-rise cap used a more complicated calculation based on rates of inflation and wage growth.

The party’s 2023 policy for expanding public housing also specified a figure of 35,000 new “warm, affordable homes”, and they had a plan to increase the Income Related Rent Subsidy so no tenant would be forced to spend more than a quarter of their income on rent.

At the time, the housing policy was costed at nearly $14 billion over five years.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand