Point England housing development announced

A new 300-home development on part of the Point England Reserve has been announced today by Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith, with the Tamaki Redevelopment Company and Ngāti Paoa.

“The greatest constraint to resolving Auckland’s housing challenges is finding suitable land, particularly in close proximity to the central city. The Point England Reserve has been poorly used for decades, with 18 hectares of it used for grazing cows.

“This plan is about replacing the cows with homes and enhancing the balance of the reserve with improved recreational and cultural facilities. This initiative will give more families a warm, dry, affordable home, improve amenities in the area and help to resolve Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement.

“The Point England Development Enabling Bill that facilitates the use of the 11.7ha of the 48ha reserve for housing will be introduced to Parliament tomorrow. Ngāti Paoa will have the right to develop this land for housing and will pay fair market value. A further 2ha is being provided for the development of a marae as part of the cultural redress of the Treaty settlement.

“The Government is committed to 100 per cent of the proceeds of the land for housing development being reinvested in the Tamaki community. We are in discussions with the Auckland Council on the redevelopment of the reserve and a significant portion of the funds will be required for enhanced recreational facilities and improvements in the reserve’s amenities. Any balance will be reinvested in the adjacent Tamaki redevelopment.

“This Point England development is complementary to the adjacent Tamaki regeneration project. The redevelopment of existing housing has the additional challenge of providing replacement homes in the interim, and in this way the Point England development will help accelerate Tamaki.

“The project is very similar to that at Riccarton Racecourse, where part of an under-utilised reserve is being used for housing and being enabled through special legislation. Our expectations are to achieve a minimum of 20 per cent social houses and 20 per cent affordable houses but the details of the housing development are yet to be negotiated with Ngāti Paoa.

“This is the ninth Crown Land housing site to be announced and the sixth in Auckland. The programme is about the Government using its land holdings to help increase housing supply and nationally we now have 1500 additional homes in the pipeline.”