Bay iwi unveils 'affordable' housing plan

Colin Reeder and Victoria Kingi at the site of Nga Potiki a Tamapahore Trust's future residential development at Papamoa East. Photo / George Novak

A Treaty settlement block in Papamoa could be transformed into a subdivision featuring hundreds of affordable homes for young families.

Papamoa hapu Nga Potiki's hopes for its 27-hectare block have been unveiled as part of a major initiative to speed up construction of nearly 2000 homes in the future satellite town of Wairakei.

The sub-tribe has joined four other developers seeking to use the Housing Accord and Special Housing Area (SHA) legislation to deliver their plans for the Wairakei subdivision. However unlike the other major players, Nga Potiki intends to make affordable housing a "significant focus" for its development of up to 460 sections.

House and land packages will target Nga Potiki's people, first-home buyers, and low to modest-income families struggling to get on to the property ladder. Its plans also call for affordable social housing for working families and a commitment to "supported living" in which the hapu retained ownership of properties.

Three of the other developers negotiating with council for the SHA have earmarked "some" of their sections for affordable homes while Hawridge Developments said affordable homes would be a "minimal" part of its 600 sections.

Nga Potiki's Te Houhou block was acquired as part of its commercial and cultural redress following Crown breaches of theTreaty of Waitangi.

The hapu will seek "maximum value" from the land, but pledges it will be socially and culturally responsible.

Trustees of the Nga Potiki a Tamapahore Trust said it wanted trade training apprenticeships to be part of its development. It was aiming at housing densities of 17 houses per hectare, including aged-care living - higher than the council's planning framework for Wairakei of 12 to 15 houses per hectare.

It said optimising land use was critical to supplying "truly affordable housing solutions".

Wairakei has become the second proposed SHA to be announced by the council, joining a one-hectare block in Waihi Rd where the maximum price for 32 affordable homes would be $350,000.

The 700 sections to be offered by the Carrus and Hawridge developments did not involve housing companies having a stake. However, land and section packages in the 835 sections offered by the Golden Sands and Zariba Holdings developments saw three-bedroom homes starting at $350,000 and $375,000, and rising to $455,000 for Golden Sands.

A public open day will be held next Tuesday from 3pm to 7pm at Golden Sands Primary.