Auckland Property: Homes for 300 Low-Income Renters Opened Today in New Lynn

Nearly 300 homeless and low-income tenants have started moving into 82 new houses in Auckland.

Housing Minister Megan Woods will open today the Thom St development in New Lynn. The new properties replaced 16 freestanding houses that were built in the 1940s.

The development includes seven detached two-story houses, 27 two-story townhouses and 48 apartments in three buildings. They are all built to modern standards, with double glazing and insulation, and the site is close to the main public transport routes.

Woods said it was “enormously satisfying” to see the progress being made on public housing in the city.

“The invisible part of many public housing, particularly in our large-scale projects, is the significant infrastructure work that enables the construction of other affordable and commercial housing, which is key to increasing supply,” he said.

The New Lynn development, which was announced under the government led by the national government, will provide much-needed relief to about 292 people on the state’s housing waiting list. The list skyrocketed to 20,000 last month, triple the number in 2017. So far, 33 of the homes have been rented.

While the Labor government aims to build 12,400 state homes over the next four to five years and another 2,000 transitional homes, that is not enough to meet growing demand. That demand is driven by escalating house prices, rents are rising faster than incomes, and a severe shortage of affordable housing.

The government says the growing waiting list is partly because it is not turning anyone away, while previous governments used more discretion.

The new homes are part of the largest homebuilding program since the 1960s, in which 5,000 state homes are being replaced by 25,000 homes in Auckland, a mix of public, affordable and market housing.

The scale of the construction, while much needed, has bothered some communities along the way.

Some housing advocates are upset by the ratio of affordable homes to homes that are sold on the open market. In one of the largest developments, in Māngere, 2,700 state houses are being demolished for 3,000 new state houses and 7,000 private houses.

In its defense, the government says that selling homes on the open market allows it to finance further development and that the construction of large blocks of public housing concentrates poverty, generating ghettos.

Advocates have also raised concerns that mixed developments could lead to gentification, breaking people’s social networks as they move out of the area.

Kainga Ora must find housing for the original state housing tenants while the sites are rebuilt. The government has previously said that most of the New Lynn tenants were relocated to other properties in Kainga Ora.