Waiouru

Whilst some NZDF houses were leased to NZDF contracted companies to house their workers, this did not fulfil demand and there was otherwise low rental availability in Waiouru and surrounding areas. Participants remained frustrated that there appeared to be empty houses in the Waiouru Military Camp which could be used for housing workers:

"They're leased to some of them as part of their contract."

"We've looked into rentals available in Ohakune, Taihape, Raetihi, there's nothing. Absolutely nothing."
"There’s houses there, but they’re held back. To me personally, that’s wrong. But I’ve got no say in anything."
"There is actually quite a few people that have been employed by the contractors that have gone on to the housing waiting list and they're actually staying in the army barracks hoping that they could get a house one day. Some of them stay in the barracks and then decide, no, I can’t do this, and they leave. Yeah, it’s not very nice."
"It's a shame they got rid of the one- and two-bedroom flats that they did."
"It was a bit of shame how they did it. they just finished refurbishing a whole lot of them and then they sold them."
"They had a fabulous contractor’s hostel years ago, with about 60 rooms, easily over two big blocks. But it had asbestos. And so they bulldozed it, so that’s the gap."
"At the community meeting they had a couple of weeks ago, one of the people who was living in the barracks was asking when are the contracting barracks going to be done up, they're really bad. They're so bad. But they're kind of at the bottom of the list. "

Most houses in Waiouru are within the Waiouru Military Camp boundaries and are government owned and occupied by NZDF personnel and their families:

"There are over 200 houses for defence personnel, and they would be mostly occupied apart from those set aside for re-furb. I'm not sure how many are families and how many are not, but yeah, we've got a significant number of families here. It's usually about a two-year posting here."
"We’ve got Defence, Ministry of Education here, and Police."

This state-owned housing was considered affordable for people to rent, a factor which attracted some to work in the area:

"The beauty is the rent that people pay, they don't pay much rent. I think they pay… $160? Other camps are more expensive."
"Now, Waiouru is becoming for some families, a posting of choice because of the cost of housing, the cost of living. And same for the contractors, but because there's not the housing… At one time they could be offered jobs with housing, and you could bring families of all ages, but there's less of that now when they're coming in and having to stay in barracks. We're one of the few camps that houses service providers in houses. Other camps don't but Waiouru does because we're so isolated, we need to be one community together. Elsewhere there is a cap on how long you can stay in the Army houses, but in Waiouru there’s no cap because there’s nowhere else you can go and rent."
"It used to be that rent was really cheap. That encouraged people to come here."
"People still know it's cheap even as a civilian but not everyone can get the houses."
"That was one of the mistakes they made in getting rid of so many houses. "

The was a lack of private housing available to rent or buy in Waiouru. This meant that some people who have lived in Waiouru long term in housing provided by their employer were forced to leave the community upon retirement.

"On this side of the road there’s nothing. They’re all on the main road. There used to be three private houses here. "
"They were looking at doing houses in Ohakune, and I said why don't you do some down here? There's nothing."
"We've had a number of people who have worked here, lived here. Their lives have been here, and they've had to move to Taihape when they've retired because they can't get a place here. Their whole life has been here. Unless they can get a house in the civilian community, but that's very limited."
"There'd be 15 rental houses in the community if you're lucky."
"There's nothing to buy."

Participants felt that when housing was available to buy, it was increasingly unaffordable. Costs were considered to be driven by increasing demand for housing in nearby towns such as Ohakune.

"It's going up for what you get here. The price of housing is very expensive. With the services you've got in Waiouru and all that, there's not a lot here but the houses are pricey. But that's a reflection too, how expensive it's become in Ohakune and if people... just that knock on affect."

Unlike other nearby towns such as Ohakune, availability of rental houses was not significantly impacted upon by a proliferation of holiday homes:

"There's a section that's been bought, a house has been moved on to it. I'm assuming it's a holiday house because you rarely see the people there. They only come for the long weekends, and it will be for the skiing or something like that. Other than that, you don't see them."
"There's one Airbnb?"
"And there's one down your street as well."
"Oh, is there?"

Building new houses in Waiouru was not something that participants thought that the NZDF was interested in, and a lack of land in the non-military area of the town curtailed the building of civilian houses:

"There's not really any land or sections left to build on."