Waiheke Island.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
There are growing calls for regulation on Waiheke Island to ensure affordable rental housing is available for long-term residents, as more and more homeowners are renting their properties to short-term tourists instead.
The island in the Hauraki Gulf has the fourth highest homeless population of any local authority in the Auckland region, despite having one of the lowest populations overall.
While the number of homeless people per capita is high, more than a third of the houses on the island are said to be uninhabited. The reason for this is attributed to overtourism.
Dr Pam Oliver, an independent social researcher and long-time Waiheke Island resident, said other popular tourist destinations had successfully mitigated similar problems in recent years without destroying their tourism industries.
“We are not saying we want all tourists to leave. The problem is that there is a massive oversupply of short-term accommodation and places are constantly left empty,” she said. checkpoint.
“Communities cannot survive if people do not have the opportunity to rent. The survival of the local community depends on whether people can live close to where they work.”
“It is a human rights issue and it is the legislative responsibility of local authorities to ensure that sufficient housing is available, provided they have the ability to enact appropriate regulations.”
Airbnb and other platforms used by homeowners for short-term accommodations have often been more profitable than long-term rentals.
While this may be the best solution for homeowners, a side effect is that many homes remain empty for much of the year while renters struggle to find new housing.
“At the last census in 2018, 38 per cent of homes on Waiheke Island were unoccupied and the number has almost certainly increased since then,” Oliver said.
“In April this year, our local newspaper Golf News conducted a review of homes for rent on the island and found that there were only nine places available for people looking for long-term accommodation, while there were 698 Airbnb listings. (The nine) homes available were not affordable.
“Anyone who has been dependent on rented accommodation all their life and has lived here for decades either has to look for accommodation through friends, but this doesn’t last forever. Or they move from one so-called winter accommodation to the next, are thrown out of their rental apartment at the end of the year and have to look for summer accommodation, which the owner can then rent out to tourists.”
The modern boom in short-term accommodation was not a problem unique to Waiheke Island.
In many other parts of the world, various measures have also been taken to limit the impact of tourism and thus protect the local population.
Project Waiheke Forever, a group Oliver is part of, is calling on Auckland City Council to take action.
“Local governments have worked very effectively to introduce regulations such as differential valuation, which values vacant homes higher than occupied homes. There are also limits on the number of nights a home can be rented for short-term stays, to encourage the owners of these homes to rent them out for long-term stays again,” said Oliver.
“Cities around the world have done this, including New Zealand. The most recent city to introduce long-stay support policies was Rotorua. Before that, Christchurch did so last year. Nelson and all state capitals in Australia have also introduced such policies, so it really is the responsibility of Auckland Council.”
