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MORE TINY HOMES COULD SOLVE QUEENSTOWN RENTAL SHORTAGE

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February, 2023

Queenstowns Pete Oswald wants opaque planning laws around
tiny homes tidied up so they can better help fix the rental housing
problem.
Last Wednesday, Oswald hosted a group of local decision-makers
in the Queenstown-based tiny home he built, to raise awareness
of the
issues and hopefully find solutions.
The group, including local Southland MP Joseph Mooney, some
Queenstown councillors and Chamber of Commerce chair Angela
Spackman, experienced first-hand life inside a diminutive house.
Oswald says there are lots of people keen on the affordable option
of a tiny home, keen to build them and landowners willing to put
them on their property.
The problem is theres no legal pathway to legitimise the
process.
The primary issue is many tiny houses are portable and, under the
New Zealand Building Act, cant be used on a site as residential
accommodation for more than two months at a time.
After two months, theyre considered a fixed building and must
comply to stringent building codes, consents and provisions of
council district plans.
The rules require that you do not live in it for two more than
months at a time, but councils could interpret it in a different
way.
For example, people might not live in it for one day [after two
months] then move back in.
Theres so much opaqueness.
No legal pathway: Queenstowner Pete Oswald in front of his
tiny home, currently being rented to a family of four
Oswalds portable tiny house is located on private property, being
rented by a family of four who were in desperate need of a
house.
He previously lived in it with his family for two years, during
which time they were forced to move it to three different
locations.
Including once when our baby was three months old a
horrendous time that impacted the income from our business and
our mental health.
When you boil it down to what people need, its a safe and
affordable house to live in.
He gives Queenstowns council credit for not getting in the way
of tiny house dwellers in the district.
Councils stance has been stay out of sight, stay out of mind,
stay hidden.
That may have worked when there was just a few of us in the
Basin, but I estimate theres now at least 100 tiny houses in the
district, all operating under the radar.
Tiny houses are a really good market-driven solution to the
housing crisis that we want to be able to better use.
Councillor Niki Gladding says shell take the matter back to
council.

Source: Mountain Scene