The Housing Minister says some of the opposition against Kāinga Ora developments is fuelled by "political rhetoric", and that people need to realise most tenants are good neighbours.
Megan Woods told Q+A it can be tempting for opposition MPs to actively oppose developments. But, she added if politicians are serious about "solving a housing crisis", they should show leadership and allay people's fears instead of fuelling them.
"Across the country, what we are seeing [is that] communities are being fuelled by some political rhetoric around opposing Kāinga Ora developments."
She added: "Some of [the opposition] might not start with Members of Parliament. But then they see… a local issue they can jump into."
Her comments come as some residents in Auckland's Blockhouse Bay, Rotorua, Ohakune, Hastings, and Palmerston North continue to oppose Kāinga Ora projects.
In Auckland, police are investigating a fire that ripped through a Kāinga Ora building site in Botany last week. Police confirmed on Tuesday they were treating the blaze at the 48-home development site as suspicious.
The project was opposed by some in the community, with local paper Times Online reporting 640 people signed a petition calling for building to be stopped. The Times also reported Kāinga Ora officials were shouted at when they fronted a public meeting about the development in Botany earlier this year.
The Housing Minister didn't want to comment on the police's investigation while it was underway, but said the loss of the houses is "both tragic and frustrating".
Asked what people's fears were with Kāinga Ora developments more generally, Woods said neighbours would often worry about their size as they become increasingly high-density.
Woods said showing neighbours the development plans and continuously communicating with them can help those worries.
The property values of neighbouring houses could also be increased with the upgraded infrastructure and amenities that come with a high-density Kāinga Ora development, she said.
Some of the rhetoric against the houses centred around the types of people that moved in, Woods added.
In December last year, Kāinga Ora admitted it didn't act quickly enough when neighbours made numerous complaints about its tenants living at a West Auckland address.
Woods said it's important to remember about half of all tenants were children who deserved a warm and safe place to live.
"When you actually work through the statistics - in terms of the number of places we have in... Kāinga Ora homes - 95% of our tenants we never get a complaint about."
She said people moved into communities all the time through private rentals and sales, and that the community couldn't pick who their neighbours were in that case anyway.
While Kāinga Ora received more than 10,000 complaints about its tenants over a recent 14-month period, only two tenancies have been terminated over that time, the Herald reported in June.
Woods told Q+A most of the complaints were over minor things, such as people not mowing the lawn or collecting their mail.
She said a "tiny proportion" of complaints were serious, and that those were taken seriously.
Q+A is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
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