Government snaps up second Wellington car park for public housing

Thursday, 11 May 2023

This property at 132 Adelaide Rd in Wellington is earmarked for new public housing.

Kāinga Ora has bought a $4.1 million car park in central Wellington, with plans to build up to 40 new state houses.

Housing Minister Megan Woods confirmed the purchase of yet another empty lot on Adelaide Rd, in Mt Cook, after $10 million was spent buying land on the same stretch of road in November.

The initial $10 million section is to be turned into up to 280 affordable homes for private sale – and some state houses – while the new $4.1 million purchase is intended to be entirely public housing.

Woods said Kāinga Ora would start working on plans for the site, but she expected that between 20 and 40 houses could be built on the newly acquired land.

Housing Minister Megan Woods has announced another Kāinga Ora land purchase in Newtown.

Planning and consent was likely to take two years and construction about 18 months, she said.

The property, at 132 Adelaide Rd, is 927 square metres and about a kilometre south of the Basin Reserve. It’s being used as a car park, but will be recognised by Wellingtonians for the bright Ukranian flag painted on the derelict wall.

Woods said the purchase showed she was serious about building more state houses in Wellington.

“Under National, Wellington City lost 18 public homes. We’ve added 424, and we’ve got about another 250 in the pipeline,” she said.

Kāinga Ora was focused on developing land along Wellington’s key transport routes, she said.

Adelaide Rd is already busy with buses, bound for the hospital and Island Bay or the CBD. Under the Let’s Get Wellington Moving proposals, it could also feature rapid transit options such as light rail or high-tech buses.

“This purchase ensures this well-positioned site can still be developed for new homes,” Woods said.

The previously purchased site is significantly larger, at 2000 square metres, and just a few hundred metres down the road at a disused petrol station near the Basin Reserve.

Both of these central Wellington land purchases are part of a “strategic land purchase” focus, launched by Kāinga Ora in 2021. Since then, the housing agency has been scouring Wellington for underdeveloped centrally located land, working alongside council, iwi and infrastructure partners.