Kerre Woodham: We must stand up against emergency housing in Rotorua

The thing about this job is that often at the end of the day, well a very truncated working day to be fair, at midday I can walk out of the studio and feel like I've achieved nothing. 

It's not like I've painted a wall, or I've collected rubbish and what were full bins are now empty or cleaned the house, what was dirty and disorganized is now pristine and gorgeous, there is actually nothing tangible to show I've been here.

I can stand on my hind legs and rail against dumb government policies or youth crime or declining education standards, and bemoan the fact that New Zealand is going in the wrong direction, but ultimately all that does is let me have a rant and let you have a rant and nothing changes.  

And that is why I was delighted to see the story in the Herald this morning on Rotorua emergency housing motels. Twelve of them are applying for resource consent to continue as emergency housing providers.

At the moment, motels operating under ministry contracts are unlawful, as the district plan only allows motels to have short term visitors. So they're looking to rectify that.

To retrospectively make them lawful but also to allow the 12 motels to continue as emergency housing providers for the next five years. Five years!

This was meant to be a short-term stopgap solution, and now they're looking to continue that for five years. 

The good thing about this is that the Rotorua Lakes Council has received more than 3600 submissions on the applications, 80 percent of which are opposed to the motels continuing as emergency housing. 

So, you've seen people galvanized

If all twelve motels in Rotorua get consent granted they'll be approved to have 1008 occupants in 301 units.

Just in Rotorua.

1008 people with complex needs in a city that you have to deal with, not the Government.

As a retailer, as a neighbour, as somebody who lives in that beautiful city who just wants to go about their business. 

Right around the country this is happening, so we need to get up on our hind legs, we need to protest and say this is unlawful and there's a reason why it's unlawful and you cannot ride roughshod over a district plan which was created to protect the community. 

If, and I imagine that this most open and transparent Government may well do that, if they ride roughshod over councils and district plans and communities, at least we'll see the whites of their eyes and we’ll know what they're doing. 

At the moment they've slipped it in and to our discredit, we've let it happen. 

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