Affordable Housing Meeting 14th August: Minutes

Kia ora. Below is a rough summary of the topics covered during the Affordable Housing Meeting on 14th August 2008. Some of the detail might have been lost or warped during the process so do let me know if any corrections are necessary. Feel free to ask questions or add comments. Better yet, come along to the next meeting on Wed 28th August at the Community House on Bow Street!

Present: Ian Mayes, Daniel Kereopa, Jon Berczely, Rozz Miles, Paul Peterson, Jacquie Forbes, John Lawson, Stephen Reid, Michael Roa, Enid Sincock, Grant Lowther, Jane Williams, Brigid Spiers.

• Housing for the elderly: Lazarus Village is closing and the elderly residents need somewhere to go that is affordable. Enid and Jane are focussing on this.
• Retrofitting of current houses.
• Policy and Research i.e. Lobbying and forging partnerships with local council, researching healthy housing alternatives, liaising with Transition Town network.
• Grant has built a 70sqm house for $35K (not including his time)
• Solutions to possible anxiety over the 'hugeness' of taking on building one's own house.
• People talking to each other to find out who has similar needs and preferences regarding co-housing projects and looking into the possibility of 'unit title'. (Current examples of co-housing projects: Earthsong in West Auckland, Otamatea near Kaiwaka, Northland, another in Whenuakite, Coromandel.)
• Robust house-building budget forecasts to avoid big surprises!
• WDC rules need to be changed. Currently rural zone areas can only build one house and a granny flat no matter how large the land. Urban rules allow one house per 450sqm.
• Lease-hold land is another option. Cheaper in short term but more expensive long term.
• We need to ensure that local service workers can afford to live here. (Queenstown has this problem)
• Form a Credit Union or equity co-op
• Implementing certain principles for building projects to take a wide range of factors into account.
• Example: Principles For Building Projects (Solscape Raglan Model) have produced the following set of principles:

1. Low embodied energy (small eco-footprint)
2. Low Cost (affordable)
3. Low Toxicity (healthy)
4. Simplistic Build (owner/builder - low tech)
5. Energy Efficient (heating and cooling)
6. Localised (labour and materials)
7. Zero Waste Objective (40% of landfill comes from building and demolition)

By following the above principles, 'decisions' around contruction become simplified.

'Method' is what we will discover.

A TRANSITION will be achieved

The next meeting will be primarily for those who want a house of their own through an affordable housing project although there will be scope for all kinds of other discussions too. We don't know exactly what form this will take but all options are currently on the table and we welcome and encourage your input. We need to find our common ground and come up with a plan of sorts. When we present this to council we can learn of the processes necessary to achieve this.