Empty state homes demolished
Six empty state homes are being demolished in a New Plymouth suburb, but work to replace them will not begin until the second half of next year at the earliest.
The properties come under Ka¯inga Ora–Homes and Communities, the new Crown agency which acts as a public housing landlord and delivers homes and urban development projects.
Four of the houses are on Wrantage St and two are in neighbouring Holford St.
Work got under way on
Monday and two of the Wrantage St properties have already been completely removed.
Ka¯ inga Ora said the buildings had come to the end of their life and ‘‘we can better utilise the land with new homes’’.
However, those new homes are still at the ‘‘conceptual stage’’, Ka¯inga Ora area manager New Plymouth, Raewyn Vooght, said in an emailed statement.
‘‘We are assessing our redevelopment plans for the sites.
‘‘As part of the Regional Housing Programme happening across the country, we have a pipeline of up to 20 houses in the New Plymouth
region being built between 2018-2022. However, this site was originally not part of those plans.
‘‘We are now assessing how we can use these sites for new modern housing, and include them in the Regional Housing Programme.’’
Vooght said construction was expected to begin in the second half of 2020 and be completed by mid-2021.
‘‘At this stage, an accurate timeline of events is not possible; however we will be keeping the public aware of our intentions with the sites as they become more ‘concrete’.’’
The most recent figures from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, from March this year, show there are 221 people in Taranaki on the register for public housing, 129 of whom are in New Plymouth.
Since January 2018, Ka¯inga
Ora has built nine two-bedroom homes on six sites in New Plymouth and is also erecting 68 KiwiBuild homes in Marfell.
The first phase of the Marfell development, consisting of 27 homes, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.