Developers Kāinga Maha have started work on the 2.84ha property near Ōpōtiki College.
The area, known locally as the old Sale Yards site, was remediated and then sold by Ōpōtiki District Council in 2020. The developers will build more than 40 properties, making best-use of the site and location.
Ōpōtiki Mayor, Lyn Riesterer, said that it was exciting to see work get underway to make the most of the central site, close to town and amenities.
“It is great to see action on the site and I know that the council team have been working closely with Kainga Maha throughout this process.
“When Council sold this site in 2020, we had a shared vision with the developers to provide high-quality housing with a mixture of affordable homes with a mix of larger and smaller properties.
“This is part of a bigger picture and there are a few actions under way to get on top of Ōpōtiki’s housing shortage. Kāinga Ora also have several new builds going through the process and of course we have the Council vision to open up Hukutaia to development as well.
“Ōpōtiki has a lot going on at the moment with many new and growing opportunities in work and training. We need to make sure that we match this growth with quality and affordable housing for people to come home to. Well done to Kainga Maha on getting this development underway and being part of Ōpōtiki’s economic growth,” Mayor Riesterer said.
Council’s Planning and Regulatory Group Manager, Gerard McCormack said that there had been significant growth in new builds and relocated houses in the past six years and that this growth looked likely to continue.
“Looking back through the figures, you can see a significant increase in activity since 2017. We have had a year-on-year increase in building consents and given the number of enquiries and strong resource consent application numbers, we expect even more new houses to be consented in 2022,” Mr McCormack said.
The table below indicates the number of building consents in each year since 2016. These figures do not include Kāinga Ora / Housing New Zealand builds which no longer need to obtain building consent from councils. In the 2021 year, there were an additional eight Kāinga Ora properties.
It is also important to note that these figures are not all building activity, but just indicative of new builds and relocatable dwellings.
“It is great to see so many new houses being added in the District. Taken together with other larger-scale activity like the development at the Sale Yards or the work up the Coast, these properties are helping address the housing shortage,” Mr McCormack said.