Hobsonville air base set to get affordable housing

The former Hobsonville air base is becoming a showplace. File picture / Kenny Rodger

A 3000-home development on the former Hobsonville air base in north-west Auckland will be a showplace for both good urban design and low-cost homes, says a Housing New Zealand subsidiary.

Hobsonville Land Company is preparing a concept plan for 167ha of Crown land, which also provides for schools, parks, a marine industry cluster and a new life for military buildings with heritage status.

Chief executive Sean Bignell said yesterday that the company was still looking at choices for developing the site on a finger of the upper Waitemata harbour.

"The aim is a development that is accessible and affordable to the entire community - young and old, singles and families, rich and poor - and one that at the same time responds to growth issues facing Auckland."

The company was working with the Waitakere City Council, transport and other agencies and interest groups to produce a blueprint for future urban growth in the region.

Development would be staggered over 10 years and it could be two years before construction could start on the first stage.

A number of steps had to be taken first. The land had to be rezoned to allow high-density residential development and it had to be brought inside metropolitan urban limits.

The city council had proposed a change to the District Plan for the Auckland Regional Council to consider. Public hearings were expected to be held by the end of the year, with final decisions not expected until the middle of next year.

Mr Bignell said the aim was to show how to achieve good urban design and affordable housing in a commercial development. The target was 3000 homes, including 500 units as state rental social housing and 500 as affordable home-ownership, or private sector, rental housing.

An official definition of affordable was where payments on a home took about a third of household income.

High, middle and low-income households would be catered for in a mix of apartments, townhouses, stand-alone homes and mixed commercial-residential buildings.

Mr Bignell said the market would dictate the form of each stage of development but the concept would take into account special characteristics of the site, particularly its "green edge" foreshore and cliff-top, the Air Force heritage buildings and deepwater access.