Meeting our housing challenges

By Kahika Moko Tepania.

A public meeting was held last week in Kerikeri to discuss Kāinga Ora and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development plans to build much-needed housing in the town. Several issues were highlighted for those attending, which included councillors, our CEO and myself. The Turner Centre auditorium was packed wall to wall, demonstrating the strength of local interest in how the government plans to address our housing crisis. And let’s be clear: we are facing a housing crisis in the Far North. We desperately need more homes and more affordable homes at that.

I appreciated that all those at the meeting agreed that we need better housing in the Far North, and that no one in our district should be homeless or live in inadequate housing. Finding the balance between addressing this crisis and ensuring we are set up for success in our growth as a district, and especially for Kerikeri, will need continued work. I applaud the drive of community groups such as Our Kerikeri and Vision Kerikeri, whose members volunteer so much of their time on behalf of those fortunate to call our largest town home. You are a template for success for all communities across the Far North!

A key driver for our lack of housing has been the rapid population growth we’ve witnessed in recent years. According to economic forecasters, Infometrics, the population in the Far North hit 72,500 in 2021, an increase of 12,000 people over just eight years. While we welcome the economic benefits of a growing population, it also brings significant challenges.

The solution to our housing shortage should be to just build more housing. The truth is, there has been a building boom in the Far North. In 2020, prior to COVID-19, the council was processing record numbers of building consents and later, in January 2022, we received record levels of resource consent applications. Despite this, we are not seeing building at the scale we need to address homelessness, nor at the price many of our people can afford. We also want to ensure that developments are fit for purpose, scale, design and where they are situated. This is where things become more complex for us as a council and the legislative processes that we must follow.

Kāinga Ora plans to address the crisis with new housing developments for Kerikeri, our largest and fastest growing town in the Far North. While Kerikeri has some infrastructure challenges, especially around roading, it is well placed to accommodate more housing. A new wastewater plant completed in 2020 has been designed to cater for growth, and the town’s water needs will be met for the next 30 years through our existing sources.

More housing is needed right across the district too. Providing the infrastructure to support new housing developments is one of the biggest challenges we face as a council. Our residents cannot fund this work alone. That is why your elected members take every opportunity to build relationships with central government and other agencies to source the funding we need.

We’ve won close to $50 million from the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund (IAF) administered by Kāinga Ora. This will go towards new roading, water supplies, flood management and significant wastewater and stormwater upgrades to enable close to 700 new homes to be built in our district – 365 in Kaikohe and another 310 in Kawakawa. We will continue to seek external funding to support infrastructure growth across our other communities as well.

We’re also working to reintroduce development contributions, so developers pay a fairer share towards the cost of new infrastructure. While this seems like a straightforward change, it is frustratingly complex. It requires us to agree on a detailed formula that calculates possible financial impacts of new developments. We aim to include that development contributions policy in our 2024 Long Term Plan.

Until that is in place, we continue working directly with developers to negotiate funding agreements. For example, we negotiated a private development agreement in 2020 with the developer of a new retirement community on Hall Road in Kerikeri. This will see the developer contribute funding for sewerage and water services, an upgrade to Hall Road and a new footpath, lighting and contributions towards new public toilets in Kerikeri.  

We’re also looking at how our own rules can be changed to make it easier for landowners to develop their lands. The council is already required by legislation to enable housing development on Māori Freehold Land through the temporary reduction in rates. In our recent 2023/24 Annual Plan consultation, we proposed simplifying and clarifying our criteria so that Māori Freehold Landowners can better access the opportunities provided by a rates remission. Council will make a decision on this proposal next month.

I was pleased that everyone attending the Kerikeri public meeting agreed on the need to build more housing for our people. I know that some of the frustrations that come with more housing is how this is done and where. The council is progressing plans to provide clearer guidance on this. In the meantime, we are here to listen, to represent and do what we can to negotiate the complexities of enabling more housing for our people.