When Christopher Luxon became leader of the National Party, he was touted by some as the new John Key. And, as we know, like Christopher Luxon - John Key grew up in Christchurch.

Luxon was middle class. Key, though, was on the other side of the tracks. Growing up in a state house in Burnside. The place John Key grew up in was one of those classic state houses. “Good bones”. That’s what people say all the time about those places, don’t they? And, quite often, they’d be three or four bedrooms.

But a lot of them were sold and, these days, there aren’t that many state housing tenants who actually need a three or four bedroom place and so the old Housing New Zealand - which is known these days as Kāinga Ora - has been building more modern places.

More modern and smaller than the old state houses. And, one of the areas they’re building in Christchurch is in Halswell. Which has brassed-off some of the locals big-time because nothing was said to them about it until work was about to begin.

The locals had assumed it was a private development and then found out what was actually happening when a leaflet from Kāinga Ora ended up in the letterboxes saying work was about to begin.

And the people in Halswell are saying that Kāinga Ora is being sneaky because they think it doesn't want people kicking up a fuss before they get on with building these places. And under council planning rules, Kāinga Ora doesn’t have to say a thing. No consultation required.

Just to highlight how nutbar some of these rules are. There are people who’ve bought a place across the road from us and they’ve pulled it down to build a new home.

They had to come to us with their plans and get us to sign some paperwork for the council because they needed approval from us. And why do you think that was?

Because their design includes a veranda that goes right around the house and the roof is going to extend over the veranda which means it’s bigger than it should be on the site and can only go ahead if the neighbours are happy with it.

Just to be clear: as far as I can work out, this new house is going to have no impact on us at all from a design or construction viewpoint - but these people had to come to us, tell us about it and get our sign-off.

But, at the same time, you’ve got Kāinga Ora allowed to build state housing developments when and where it wants without talking to the neighbours. If it was them wanting to build across the road - and not the people who have bought the land to build a house - we wouldn’t have heard a thing about it.

The explanation, of course, for this stark contrast in approaches between the people over the road from us needing our permission to build their veranda and Kāinga Ora being able to build where it wants without any consultation, is the fact that council planning rules are only focused on the structures on a property. And nothing to do with who might end up living there.

Maybe the very nice people building across the road from us might turn out to be nightmare neighbours. Who knows. I’m willing to put money on them not.

But when it comes to state houses we seem to think completely differently, don’t we? We jump to conclusions that anyone living in a Kāinga Ora property is going to be bad news. And I say “we” because I reckon - if I’m completely honest here - I reckon I would be the same as the people in Halswell who are upset that they weren’t told about Kāinga Ora building in their neck of the woods.

And, of course, I’d be just as guilty as the next person of making grand assumptions about what it’s like having state housing tenants in the area. Which I’d also be first to admit wasn’t based on anything other than grand assumptions because I have never lived in a state house or near state housing.

Which is why I got in touch this morning with a mate who does have Kāinga Ora tenants in his street.

I texted him about it and here’s what he said about his experience.

“I'm enjoying the feeling that there are people across the road living lives that could have probably taken much worse turns but are now housed in comfort on a nice quiet street.

“I also enjoy sending positivity their way through taking responsibility for my own prejudices towards the tenants.

“So far we've only heard noise from one of the new tenants who had a spate of arguments from a rocky relationship with someone, but they never went too late and they seemed to have settled down for now.

“There has been plenty of support from Kāinga Ora and police and, as I believe human nature prevents us from drawing strangers into the difficulties of our lives, it's a great lesson in not adding fuel to others' fires.

“The way I see it, it's a necessary service that brings life to a dull middle class neighbourhood!”