One in every six dollars to be spent on Kāinga Ora’s $300 million Arlington social housing project in Wellington will go towards groundworks and clearing up contamination on the 1.7 hectare site ahead of construction work.
Housing minister Megan Woods unveiled plans for 300 new homes across 16 separate buildings on the Mt Cook site on Thursday, to be built and managed by the social housing agency at $1m per unit.
Kāinga Ora general manager of construction and innovation Patrick Dougherty said of the almost $296m in approved funding, $50m will go to demolition, seismic design and remediating contaminants like asbestos and lead, which are "often present" in sites of this age.
Kāinga Ora entered into a 125-year lease with the Wellington City Council for the land in August 2019. Consent, under a special housing accord, was then granted in March 2020.
Woods said the development will cater for about 900 people and will include shared amenities such as a playground, community centre, public park and an orchard.
The prominent city fringe site, which sits between Arlington and Hankey Streets, was home to the 40-year-old Arlington Apartments.
Those apartments, which were also social housing, were deemed “not fit for purpose” a decade ago and were eventually demolished last year.
Dougherty said civil works throughout the rest of the site, including excavation and retaining, are already advanced through the contractor McKee Fehl.
He said a build partner was close to being finalised, with work then expected to start in April, aiming towards a three year timetable for overall completion.
Homestar
Woods said up to 7.5% of construction funding, or about $22.5m, will be allocated to priority businesses, including Māori and Pacific-led local businesses.
The homes will be built to Homestar6 standards, and use light engineered timber as a key component to help reduce overall carbon emissions.
Woods said that the programme adds to the increase of almost 9,000 new homes built since June 2017. Over that same time span, however, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development reports that housing applications have grown by 20,172, to a current waitlist of 25,525.
As of last September, there were 909 people on the Ministry of Social Development's housing register in Wellington, up from 772 the prior year.
Dougherty said those applicants will be matched to homes, in order of priority - based on the size of the family and their preferred location.
Kāinga Ora now manages 75,096 public homes, with market debt of $6.5 billion and another $2b in crown loans.
