MEDIA RELEASE 25 November 2008

Housing Rent Increase - Judicial Review Outcome

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker says he is extremely disappointed that the High Court has found that the process that staff recommended to the Council regarding rent increases for Council housing tenants was found to be incorrect.

“Clearly we need our legal advisers to review the decision before we can dismiss the idea of an appeal,” Mr Parker says.

“The judgement is lengthy and we are still working through it. The fact is that the Court did not find against the decision to increase the rents, but it did find against the process used to reach that decision.

“However by finding the process at fault this effectively stops the rent increase and means that the programme to bring our housing stock up to acceptable standard will now stall. In other words the issue faced by thousands of tenants and the Council hasn’t gone away. That means our tenants will still live in cold flats with bad insulation. With this decision we no longer have the money to make the necessary improvements.

“We increased the rent to improve conditions for our tenants and to ensure that social housing would be available for future generations of Christchurch people. My view, consistent with the Council’s Housing Strategy, is that social housing needs to be self supporting and not require cash contributions from our rates,” Mr Parker says.

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