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The ground has been broken for Te Kaarearea, a housing development in Hamilton East shared between Waikato Tainui and Housing New Zealand.
The iwi through Tainui Group Holdings is building 50 houses for on sale to tribal members for between $450,000 and $550,000, and Housing New Zealand is building 30 state homes.
The tribe bought the 2 hectare brownfields site at the former Jebson Place from the corporation under its right of first refusal for surplus land.
Tainui spokesperson Jason Ake says local hapu Ngaati Wairere named the development to recongnise the native falcon that used to be abundant around the site.
"At particular times in the year it would attract what the falcons dined on so it became a place where Ngaati Wairere would collect kai, it was a place they would encourage kai to be grown, so it was a place of abundance of food," he says.
Expressions of interest will open next week at housing@tainui.co.nz and registered tribal members who are first home buyers will have the first option to buy a home, which should be ready by mid-2019.
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