Ferrymead-Brookhaven Residents' Association chairman David Stringer said 17 neighbours had contacted him frustrated at delays.
He was in the same position, he said, with a quake-damaged house that had been declared a rebuild and no reason for an EQC payment to be delayed.
"There's no valid reason for them to withhold the payment,'' he said.
"You ring up the settlements teams in Australia or Wellington and they tell you point-blank, 'No, you're not being paid until that [foundation design] work's been done'."