HDC chief executive Nigel Bickle shows new house owner Amo Taitea a message from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who couldn't make the meeting as her plane was turned back in bad weather. Photo / Warren Buckland
HDC chief executive Nigel Bickle shows new house owner Amo Taitea a message from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who couldn't make the meeting as her plane was turned back in bad weather. Photo / Warren Buckland
A year-long journey to housing independence has nearly concluded for soon-to-be Flaxmere resident Amo Taite.
Housing Minister Megan Wood made an announcement of $18.5 million in funding for Three Waters and transport infrastructure in Hastings to support housing, before joining Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst and Taite on a tour ofTaite's newly built home on Thursday.
A scheduled appearance by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at both events was cancelled because of a flight delay due to cloudy and rainy weather in Hawke's Bay.
Taite said the journey to home ownership as a single mother was not easy, with some time spent in a Housing Corporation home, living with her mother and renting along the way.
"Just to start my journey being in debt and then getting out of that, being a single mum, working hard and keeping to our goals and just never giving up," Taite said.
She has five children who are young adults now.
"I am going to have two living with me, so they can do what I've done, save money and build a house. I want them to be able to build their own too."
"I want to get a dog and a cat. I'd like a French bulldog or a pug, something small."
The $192m tranche two Infrastructure Acceleration Fund (IAF) is expected to enable about 11,500 homes at multiple housing developments across the country over the next 10 to 15 years.
Minister of Housing Megan Woods announcing tranche two of the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund on a rainy day at "Gumtree" subdivision, Flaxmere, Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
Woods said a joint application between Hastings District Council and Heretaunga Tamatea Settlement Trust for the $18.5m would support 4000 more homes in Hastings alone, including Māori housing on several papakāinga developments.
"This is the infrastructure that will allow homes to be built, this is the pipes under the ground, this is the roads, these are the things that allow us to build houses," Woods said.
Act leader David Seymour spoke to a packed room in Hastings on Wednesday evening, and the party hit back at the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund announcement on Thursday.
Act deputy leader and housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden described the fund as a temporary fix that would not solve the country's infrastructure problems.
"It's a too little, too late concession and shows that changing zoning doesn't mean more houses if you don't fund infrastructure," she said.
Act's solution is a member's bill which proposes local councils receive a payment equivalent to 50 per cent of the GST for every new dwelling constructed in their territory.
"Act's GST-sharing scheme is estimated to deliver $1 billion every year to support local development enabling infrastructure, but councils that consent more, get more," van Velden said.
"By providing financial incentives for councils to support new housing we'll see more development."
Hazlehurst said they had been working since 2019 with their Hastings Place Based Plan partners to deliver homes that meet the needs of the community.
"The government funding that helped support and kick-start this initiative has allowed us to move more quickly than would have previously been possible, and we've made huge progress with hundreds of houses either built or in the pipeline," Hazlehurst said.
Heretaunga Tamatea Settlement Trust chairwoman Liz Graham said the IAF funding represented one of their first opportunities to invest commercially, socially, environmentally, and culturally in their people.
"Te tapuwae o Rongokao – tapuwae nui tapuwae roa. Seeding our footprint into the future like that of Rongokako – far reaching and broad," Graham said.
The IAF is a contestable fund of about $1b, designed to allocate funding for infrastructure to enable housing development – such as transport, three waters or flood management.
