14 August 2012

Housing New Zealand Earthquake Team Shifts to CBD

Housing New Zealand has today signed a four year lease on office space at 93 Manchester St in Christchurch’s Central Business District. The offices will be used to house the organisation’s Earthquake Recovery Team and local assets staff.

Sean Bignell, Housing New Zealand’s General Manager Asset Development, said the move is a demonstration of support for Christchurch’s CBD and will bring the Earthquake Recovery Team closer to other key agencies involved in the city’s rebuild, including the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and Christchurch City Council.

“As well as being a good move for us, we know that bringing our people into the central city will support businesses that are establishing or re-establishing themselves at the heart of Christchurch.”

The Earthquake Recovery and Assets Teams are currently located at Housing New Zealand’s Papanui office but are expanding as the Corporation’s repair and rebuild programme gets underway. A team of about 30 earthquake recovery staff and 10 assets staff will be based in the new office.

“It feels great to be able to use an existing central city building. We have had robust engineering checks done and it meets all of the earthquake standards for our staff,” Mr Bignell said. “As construction gets underway in the CBD it is going to be an exciting place to work and a perfect backdrop for the work that we need to do in the Canterbury rebuild.”

Along with finishing repairs on 212 vacant damaged houses by the end of October, Housing New Zealand will be building between 200 and 350 new houses in the next 18 months. Further work will follow in restoring and reconfiguring its Canterbury housing portfolio for the future.

ENDS

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