Glen Innes beneficiary's house demolished within days of her leaving

A last-minute conversation between the tenant of the Taniwha St home and developer TRL cleared the way for demolition to proceed. Photo / Greg Bowker

The home a Glen Innes woman fought for many months to keep has been reduced to a pile of rubble - less than a week after she gave up the fight and moved out.

Ioela (Niki) Rauti had been battling through the courts for some time to keep the state house out of the hands of a development company.

But a final legal bid in the High Court at Auckland to overturn the possession order that gave her home of more than two decades over to Tamaki Regeneration Ltd failed.

The beneficiary had been given the lease for the house, on Taniwha St, in 1999. Her mother had lived there since the 1980s. But TRL wanted to demolish it as part of its wider development project in the area.

In September a High Court judge upheld the order granting the possession of the Taniwha St property to the development company, and two weeks ago the 62-year-old was served an eviction notice.

The battle looked set to continue, with Rauti's supporters promising to camp outside her door to oppose the eviction, but a last minute conversation between Rauti and Tamaki Redevelopment Company, TRL's parent body, led to reconciliation.

Niki Rauti (62) gained hundreds of supporters while she fought to keep her state house of 20 years. Photo / Greg Bowker

After rejecting several previous offers from the TRC of a new house in the same area, Rauti accepted another offer of a house and moved into it on Friday.

Today, bulldozers were seen outside her old house. A short time later, all that was left was a pile of building materials.

The property was one of 2500 state houses pinpointed for demolition to make way for 7500 new homes within 10 to 15 years.

The regeneration programme would bring a net addition of 5000 "affordable" and market-priced homes, while the number of social houses would stand at 2800.

Rauti and her supporters opposed the plans which they saw as a mass sell-off of state housing.