One South Auckland iwi has freed up new land for the Auckland Council's Special Housing Area (SHAs) inniative.
It's a deal that has now brought Ngāti Te Ata into the business of real estate.
Tahuna Minhinnick of Kahawai Point Ltd says, “This is not an exclusive thing. Any iwi anywhere in the whole of Auckland can develop land and they all want to be doing it, but it comes with significant risk.”
Auckland Mayor Len Brown says, “Their application is that they want to do a special housing area in that community to support their iwi and also support the commercial aspirations of the iwi.”
There are two new special housing areas being made available that will enable 1000 homes to be built at Bremner Rd in Drury, and 800 homes to be built at McLarin Rd, Glenbrook, Franklin, 15% of which will go towards affordable housing.
At the Glenbook site in Franklin, the development company Kahawai Point Ltd, which includes Ngāti Te Ata iwi members, hopes to make 80 housing sites available specifically for Ngāti Te Ata.
“We’ve always had land and there's always an ambition to provide housing for our people in one way or another. This is one of the vehicles that is helping to facilitate that,” says Minhinnick.
The Auckland Mayor says that Ngāti Tamaoho, Te Akitai and Ngāti Te Ata have been partied to consultation process to open up the two new special housing areas.
Brown says, “There is a good level of comfort with those iwi to enable this special housing area to proceed.”
Earth works at McLarin Rd hope to begin on October 01 2015.