Crux podcast: Queenstown's bravest woman doing the toughest job
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Julie Scott does not complain about her job but it is without doubt the hardest mission in Queenstown - trying to beat our affordable housing crisis.
To make the task even harder she's just taken another hit. The Queenstown Lakes District Council has shelved a crucial plan to bring in development dollars to help fund homes for low to middle level earners.
Speaking to Crux as part of our podcast series it became clear that this latest obstacle is just a blip in a 20 year journey that's already produced more than $50 million of new affordable housing stock.
The Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust has been a pioneer of new business models to produce affordable housing and the podcast features many of the innovative and sometimes surprising initiatives that have made the trust such a success.
There's a new sponsorship deal with Sotheby's that puts money from their business back into community housing, a long term debate with the QLDC over a very valuable piece of land and new construction techniques that reduce construction costs.
In all of these developments Ms Scott has been the quiet guiding hand. She talks about the changes seen in Queenstown over the last ten to twenty years and what she sees as the future for the district. She also describes the teachers, police and nurses - plus every other occupation - that's represented on the 1,300 waiting list and the heartbreak of seeing people leave the district when the stress of finding somewhere to live simply becomes too much.
In our review of the week's top stories Kim Bowden and Peter Newport discuss ongoing uncertainties on the Wānaka health care scene and the unusual appearance of a digger on a barge at the outlet of Lake Wakatipu this week - just what were they trying to achieve?
Listen to the top stories of the week and the interview with Julie Scott here (short version)
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