Housing plan back to drawing board

Wednesday, 27 December 2023

The first homes on the 17,000-square-metre Arlington site, off Hankey St in Mt Cook, Wellington, were meant to be ready by now.

A 300-home social housing complex has been delayed and sent back to the drawing board as nearly 800 Wellington households face the New Year on the waiting list for a home.

Central Wellington’s Arlington Kāinga Ora complex, including a 10-storey tower block, was demolished in 2020, with plans for a replacement complex with the first of 300 homes finished by 2023.

With just weeks left to that deadline the site remained almost-empty and Kainga Ora construction and innovation general manager Patrick Dougherty confirmed “cost escalation since the project began” meant the whole project was getting a rethink.

Rusty iron columns and structures sit in an empty site at the former Arlington apartments. Three hundred social housing homes were meant to be built there by now but rising construction costs delayed the work

“The changes to the original plans will mean we will look to apply for a new resource consent in early 2024, a process which allows the benefit of aligning with the proposed new Wellington district plan,” Dougherty said.

Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said current rules allowed for 21 metre high buildings at the site, which was about six stories. It was still not certain what the new district plan, to be finalised in 2024, would set a new limit at.

The Ministry of Social Development’s list of Wellington City households waiting for a state home in September sat at 789.

The district plan proposed changes allowed for more-intensified housing, and current plans were for bigger buildings with more green space. The new plans, still being worked through, would probably still have 300 homes but would include “changes to typology and designs”, he said.

Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, previously a Wellington City councillor, said Arlington had to succeed as the need was urgent.

Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul: “We need public housing in Wellington, otherwise our city will just be for the most rich.”

The five deaths at the Loafers Lodge fire in Newtown in May accentuated the need with many of the residents there on a waiting lost for social housing. Of the 789 people on the Kāinga Ora waiting list, 765 were “priority A” meaning their need was high.

She said Wellington had already lost social housing with 131 tenants in the Gordon Wilson complex moved out in 2012 due to structural issues, the Dixon St flats were vacated in 2022, and news that same year that 144 tenants in the Granville Flats in Berhampore had to move out ahead of demolition.

Pukehīnau/Lambton ward councillor Iona Pannett says it is critical that the flats are built.

“We need public housing in Wellington, otherwise our city will just be for the most rich,” Paul said.

Lambton/Pukehinau ward city councillor Iona Pannett said it was “unsurprising” costs had risen but it was “absolutely critical” that the project was finished and that 300 homes were delivered.

This may mean the original budget, $296 million in February 2022, had to be exceeded, she said.

Metal foundations and other metal infrastructure for the now-ditched build had already been installed but those would be used for the new build, a Kāinga Ora spokesperson said.

The original plans for the 17,000-square-metre site featured 300 new homes, plus shared amenities such as a playground, a community centre, community gardens, offices, and an orchard.

It was to consist of 16 buildings, ranging from town houses to six-storey apartment blocks, each built to be energy efficient with high standards of sustainability.