Government Planning and Support for Housing on ori land

							A paper presented to the World Indigenous Housing
          Conference held at Vancouver
            British Columbia, Canada
               11 – 15 June 2012
Native Land Court established in 1862 – now the Māori Land Court.

The Court changed customary title to legal titles. Ultimately, resulted in
significant areas of land were acquired by the Crown or British settlers.

The land retained by Māori became “Māori freehold land” – legal title where
individuals hold specified interests/shares.

Māori saw the work of the Court as being detrimental in the nineteenth
century and early part of the twentieth century.

Since the late twentieth century – especially since Te Ture Whenua Māori Act
1993 – the Court’s role has been to promote the interests of Māori.

The 1993 Act expressly directs the Court facilitate and promote the
retention, occupation, development and utilisation of the land for its
owners, their whānau, and their hapū.
Māori Land at 2000
Title orders (and certificates of title).

Lists of owners.

Māori freehold land can be and is used as mortgage security.

Legal instruments to enable the land to be better used.

Māori Freehold Land Registration Project has enabled digital title
plans to be created for all titles.

Almost all titles can be viewed on Māori Land Online.
   Simplified view

   Maori Land Court
    Districts

   Maori Land layers

   Same info from
    MLOL

   Dual language
    option
Governance structures include Māori incorporations and trusts.

Whānau trusts enable Māori to pool their individual shares and effectively “re-
tribalise” the land.

Ahu Whenua Trusts enable land to be developed and are widely used for housing
developments.



Three legal tools have been used to enable housing Māori land:
Partition orders – less common today as they truly individualise land and
have led to the sale of land.
Licences  to occupy – common in the last 30 years. They create an exclusive
right to occupy part of the land. They also enable mortgage security to be
given over the house only.
Occupation   orders – introduced by the 1993 Act. They grant exclusive use of
part of the land. The order may be passed on from generation to generation.
Treaty settlement entities (“TSE”) have arisen out of the settlement
of Treaty of Waitangi grievances.

TSE typically receive financial and commercial redress.

The members of the tribe do not have separate defined interests as
per Māori land.

Many TSE see the provision of social housing as the responsibility of
the Government.

Some TSE are assisting Māori with housing through:
Advocacy  and education.
Establishing housing by accessing Government funding.
Two reports:

   Controller and Auditor General’s 2011 Performance Audit:
    Government Planning and Support for Housing on Māori land.

   New Zealand Productivity Commission’s 2012 Housing Affordability
    in New Zealand Report.
The two reports identify several barriers to housing on Māori land:

   Difficulty in raising finance.

   Council planning restrictions.

   Council land rates arrears.

   Costs and delay in installing infrastructure.

   Gaining consent from owners of land in multiple-ownership.

The Auditor General’s report discusses three Government schemes funding housing on Māori land:

   Kainga Whenua loan scheme.

   Māori Demonstration Partnership.

   Special Housing Action Zones.

The New Zealand Productivity Commission’s report identifies barriers to private funding of
   housing on Māori land.
Māori land is not “tribal land” in its truest sense. Trustees must
ensure that housing (and other) developments benefit their
stakeholders i.e. the land owners.

Housing on Māori land is not social housing. The land owners are
entitled to individual benefits.

Accusations of nepotism arise from time to time. Two solutions are
to allocate houses by ballot and to engage independent property
management.

Trustees in general do not have the high skill capacity required to
develop and manage housing.
Individual land ownership creates challenges for trustees in allocating housing:

Owners    hold different shares and are not all “equal”.
A   large percentage of owners on ownership lists are dead.
A   large percentage of owners on ownership lists live away from the tribal region.

Trusts must address whether the trust should own houses and rent them out or whether
the owners should own the houses themselves.

Experience suggests that it is difficult for trusts to own and rent houses as:

A   high level of skill and resource is required.
The   ongoing repairs and maintenance costs are significant.
Unless  a trust has other sources of income, being a landlord of Māori land is rarely a
viable “business”.

Many Māori aspire to own their own homes.

A common cause of tension amongst Māori owners is the contribution to maintenance of
family homes.
Māori can use their Māori land as mortgage security. But this is not
common due to:

The    land being in multiple-ownership.
Banks    not understanding Māori land titles.
Māori   being wary of granting mortgages over land.

The alternative approach is to give mortgage security over the
house only. This works well when there is no default. However,
where there is default then:

The    value of the security is not great.
There    is no formal process of offering the house to other owners.
All   parties lose if the houses are removed from the land.
Māori land owners struggle to satisfy local councils’ regulatory
requirements. This often results in:

Housing   being delayed or not proceeding.

Māori  building without consent. This gives rise to other issues
including: disputes amongst owners; unsafe housing; unsanitary
housing; and uninsurable housing
Governance structures must be designed for the specific community.

Work needs to be done to raise the skill levels of those in governance roles.

A robust land title system is essential. Digital mapping assists greatly.

Those in governance need to carefully address the ownership model
concerning ownership of houses and repair and maintenance of
infrastructure.

Innovations to private funding need to be explored.

Better engagement between local councils, Government organisations and
Māori owners is needed.