Ngāti Toa Secures A Deal To Ensure High Quality, Healthy And Affordable Homes At Kenepuru Landing

On Thursday 30 September 2021, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira signed an agreement with Carrus Kenepuru Limited to take over the remaining stages of the Kenepuru Landing development, placing the iwi in end-to-end control of the construction of the new Porirua suburb.

Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira Chief Executive Officer Helmut Modlik says the new agreement will enable Ngāti Toa and partners to oversee and ensure the construction of at least 450 houses throughout the remaining stages of the development. He adds that while the intent is that most of the houses will likely be owned by iwi members, it is expected that Porirua residents will also benefit.

“Our partners kindly agreed to our request to buy them out so we could complete the development” Helmut said.

“The acquisition will make a foundational contribution to the Rūnanga’s vision to ensure that Ngāti Toa is a strong, vibrant and influential iwi.”

“Ensuring access to high quality, affordable and healthy housing that iwi members can own themselves will be an enormous benefit.”

“With the ever-increasing cost of housing locking many out of home ownership, we see it as our responsibility to take affirmative action with a new model that will transform and improve the prosperity and wellbeing for our people and the Porirua community.”

“Ngāti Toa will take over stages 3 – 6 of the Kenepuru Landing development and continue the provision of high quality housing, via a more affordable model through our leasehold land trust of whenua ownership.”

“By retaining the whenua in iwi ownership and providing ground lease opportunities to iwi members to build their homes on, we will remove about 40% of the upfront cost of home ownership. In addition, through our iwi-owned businesses, we will help to ensure the quality and affordability of the homes.”

“As well as calling on the building industry already involved in the project we will be calling on and offering opportunities to our iwi tradespeople and businesses to also be involved to provide opportunities across the full spectrum of housing development.”

Ngāti Toa and Carrus Kenepuru Limited have been in partnership for approximately five years and during that time, the partnership has successfully undertaken the commercial residential development, building and marketing the quality new suburb in Kenepuru.

The new agreement will see Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira take over the significant housing development from April 2022.

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