Retirement Housing FAQs

You can find our rental charges for the current year here. We review our retirement housing rental rates each year and any rent increase will be notified in advance, in accordance with relevant legislation.

Tenants must pay rent fortnightly in advance via direct debit from your bank.

The tenant is responsible for arranging and paying for their own services and utilities, including electricity, Internet, telephone and any care supports or medical alarm services they may need. Council does not pay for these services. The tenant is also responsible for arranging personal contents insurance to cover their own belongings.

Council is responsible for maintaining the retirement housing buildings and lawns but tenants are expected to keep the small garden area around the outside in a tidy condition.

Tenants are required to keep the inside of their home reasonably clean and tidy at all times. Properties are inspected twice a year in April and October.

Parking spaces are provided at each property and there is limited additional space for visitor parking on site.

 All of our properties comply with any relevant legislation under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.

The current demand for our retirement housing is high. It is likely that a flat will not be available immediately on your application, but your name will be placed on a waiting list. 

We manage all of the costs and expenses for our retirement housing portfolio in a single activity account, which means that all of the costs relating to funding and maintaining the retirement housing activity and any income generated are retained in one account and are not used to pay for other Council services. Similarly, rates do not subsidise the retirement housing portfolio.

As part of our review in 2020, we consulted with the community in July 2020 on this topic. While some communities supported the idea to subsidise retirement housing rental costs with ratepayer funds, there was clear community feedback that this was not a role of ratepayers at this time.

A small amount of work to upgrade the retirement housing units was completed before the review in 2020; however, the required increase in rental charges was necessary to ensure we could fund future work on the units, such as replacing carpet or kitchens and bathrooms that didn't need upgrading at the time but will do in five or ten years.

On average, it costs Council just under $7,000 each year to operate and maintain the 48 flats in the district. These costs include paying officers to manage tenants and receive income, insurance rates and property rates, and for the basic maintenance of each unit and its lawn and garden. On top of this, we have to plan for and fund renewals costs for the replacement of carpets, bathrooms and kitchens.

Those tenants who do not have cash or assets can access the full accommodation supplement. You can find out more about this on the Ministry of Social Development's website.

Despite providing social housing, councils cannot access any of the subsidies that would make retirement housing more affordable, such as the Government's Income-Related Rent Subsidy, due to rules set out by the Government.