John Tookey: Professor of Construction at AUT on the council's damning report into boarding houses

A report from Auckland Council’s boarding house inspectors shows out of 44 properties suspected to be breaking the law, 40 were “operating unauthorised transient accommodation or boarding houses”. 

Many had issues with fire safety, gang-affiliated guests and owners questioning council authority. 

Professor of Construction at AUT, John Tookey, told Mike Hosking there’s been a selection of 44 – most of which turned out to be crap – and that’s not entirely surprising.  

Tookey said “It’s a tough economy to deal with – people are not necessarily prioritising upkeep.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Perhaps not surprisingly, we've got a damning report into Auckland's
boarding houses or can council inspectures. They found of the
forty four properties suspected to be breaking the law, forty
while operating unauthorized trendsing and accommodation for boarding houses. Also
found government excuse me, government agencies were recommending clients move
into the houses, in which many had issues like fire

(00:20):
safety breaches, gang affiliated guests, owners questioning council authority. Professor
of Construction at au T John TOOKI is with us,
John morning. To you, if you had to wrap a
word around that, what would you use? Disastrous, shambolic, hopeless.
It looks like lots of adjectives, but I'm going to
go for not that surprising. Yeah, well that was my

(00:42):
next question because if I said to you, now, these
boarding houses, what do you reckon? I mean, we'd all
say they look like they're poorly run, and as it
turns out they are.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well. In fairness, you know, you've got a simple selection
of forty four or whatever it was that we thought
were going to be crap, and sure enough they turned
out to be crap. And you know that that's not
entirely surprising. You've got a scenario where you've got a
lot of folks who they're at the b men's. You know,
it's a it's a tough economy to deal with at
the moment. People are not necessarily prioritizing upkeep and so

(01:11):
on and so forth.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Surprise, is this a rules thing whereby the rules aren't
adhere to all the authorities overseeing the rules don't chicken.
Therefore we end up where we have.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
The rules are totally appropriate for what's necessary. It's a
it's an adherance issue. And that the when it comes
to authorities recommending accommodation so on, that smacks more of
old lists that have not been updated and not been
brought to brought up to date with the most appropriate
new stuff, you know, in terms of issuance of certifications.

(01:45):
So you know, I think there's a bit of a
left hand right hand bit as far as that side
of it is concerned. It's not surprising when so many
fail that we expect you to fail, you.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Know, And can we say, really bluntly, it's because probably
no one keys.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think it comes down to a priority issue. I
think that's probably the most charitable description. And this comes
relatively speaking down the list. The problem with that, of course,
is the fact that we are talking, as we saw
with the fire last year. You know, we are actually
talking lives potentially on the line.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Exactly is anyone going to do anything about it? Will
they do another report in a couple of years, and
the same thing's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, when you're dealing with polemic issues like, for example,
filling in potholes, which is you know, it's a big issue,
you don't get me wrong, But when you've got number
one priority because of the electoral zeitgeist, you don't expect
these sorts of rather mundane issues to be addressed as
a priority.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Good on you, John, Appreciate your insight. John Tuckey, who's
the professor of construction at aut For.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
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