PENSIONERS TO MARCH TO SCUTTLE SALE OF HOUSING

The Beacon reoprts, Friday, 05 June 2009

WHAKATANE Grey Power members and their supporters including Every Voice Counts, are planning to march on Whakatane District Council on Thursday to express their opposition to Whakatane District Council plans to sell its pensioner housing stock.  Marchers will walk from the information centre and along The Strand to Mahy Court, outside the council building, where they will be addressed by the Reverend Robert Bruere, who organised a petition opposing the sale. The council hopes to raise about $5 million from the sale of its 79 units and use the proceeds on capital projects such as a new rubbish dump.

PETITION

Mr Bruere petition’s has gained 3000 signatures and he expects the number to rise to about 3500 before he gives it to the council.  Before doing so he will ask the bishop of Waiapu, David Rice, to bless the petition when he visits Whakatane on Sunday.  The petition was launched at one of Mr Bruere’s Sunday services at the Church of St George and St John in April, after the council announced it was looking into selling the flats as part of the council review of its long-term plan. The petition soon attracted support from the Whakatane Returned and Services Association, the Catholic Church and Grey Power. Petition forms have been circulating widely in the community.

The march will coincide with the council’s consideration of its long-term plan. Submissions on the plan close on Monday.

The council subsidises rents for its pensioner houses and flats by 20 per cent of the market rental value. Seventy-two of the 79 accommodation units the council owns and manages are located in Whakatane.
The units - 14 double for elderly couples and 65 singles - were built from the 1960s to the 1980s. They were paid for through Housing Corporation low interest loans, which Mr Bruere believes were entirely state-funded.
The council accepts tenants only if they can demonstrate a need for an improved accommodation standard, special family circumstances, and an inability to afford market rents. Tenants in the Alice Stone village on Goulstone Road, where there are 28 units, are charged $200 a fortnight for single units and $220 for a double. All other Whakatane council flats cost $192 a fortnight for a single and $210 for a double.