Pensioner council rents may double and near triple

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 381, 9 April 1991, Page 1

Pensioner council rents may double and near triple

Waimarino pensioners living in council flats will be charged up to $20 more per fortnight in rent this year if a recommendation of the Waimarino Community Board is accepted.

If however, the recommendations of council officers are accepted double unit tennants will be paying $140 by July next year, up from the present $50. A report from the council officers on the current pensioner housing rentals was presented to the council last month, who decided the community boards should have a chance to have their say before action is taken. The report calls for increases in rents so that the council's philosophical aims can be achieved. The council has decided that "pensioner units should be comfortable for our elderly residents but should not be a cost to ratepayers now or in the future". To meet that aim the report calls for increases in rents to pay for the upgrading of the Raetihi units and to build up a replacement fund for flats in the future. The fortnightly rents would increase on three dates to ease the burden on the tenants. Double unit rents would increase from $50 to $70 on 1 July 1991, then to $98 on 1 January 1992 and to $140 on 1 July 1992. Single units would increase from $40 to $54 on 1 July, to $70 on 1 January and to $93 on 1 July 1992. Bedsit units would increase from $40 to $55 on 1 July 1991 and to $70 on 1 January. The Waimarino Community Board recommended that the council

accept the first step but that it review the situation later in the year before making a decision on the subsequent increases. Corporate services manager John Murrihy said the proposal was to make each unit pay for itself. He said it was not a case of merely bringing rentals into line with Taumarunui, whose Turnpage2

Pensioner rents

From page 1 rents are currently much higher. Cr Bill Peach said a problem with increasing the rents was that the money would affect the people's families. "You've got to remember a lot of these people are financially supporting other members of their family and another $90 may not come from the pensioner's spending but from out of the pockets of the family they are helping to support." He said the increases could force pensioners out into other rental accommodation. Mayor Garrick Workman said it may be that ratepayers are prepared to support pensioners through their rates, but also pointed out that many ratepayers were also pensioners who were having difficulty paying their rates now.