May 07, 2015
Nga Potiki keen to pick up state houses
Iwi in Tauranga Moana are keen to hear the detail on the Government’s plans to sell the city's 1250 state houses.
The Minister for Housing New Zealand, Bill English, says Tauranga and Invercargill have been chosen to pilot the sell down because they have a stable demand for social housing and active community housing providers.
Victoria Kingi from Nga Potiki Trust says buying state houses was discussed as part of the iwi’s settlement negotiations.
She says the trust is keen to buy the 149 houses in its rohe around Papamoa, or to work with other providers to pick up the whole package.
But she says the price and the terms need to be right.
"So we would be taking on the responsibility of social housing provision and be locked into that for a number of years so no one is going to make gazillions of dollars out of these arrangements. We are really going in to them with the intention of better outcomes but also has be be fair for us but also has to make sense for the government," Ms Kingi says.
Nga Potiki is close to finishing a papakainga development of six two-bedroom kaumatua homes near one of its marae, and is building 20 four-bedroom family houses near another marae.
It is also about to sign a deal to develop 240 homes on general land.
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