Kaitangata land and house package begins
More builders are coming on board to get the Kaitangata land and house package scheme cracking.
Balclutha builder Mark van Asperen, of Big River Homes, was the first to show interest in the community-driven economic development scheme when it kickedoff two years ago and put the small south Otago town on the map.
‘‘The Kaitangata Promotions Group came as an organisation to ask me to be involved. I assumed I wasn’t the only one they approached but I have been the only one.’’
van Asperen specialises in prefabricated buildings that fit the affordable housing brief for the $235,000 land and house packages.
The promotions group earmarked 12 sections for the scheme that was designed to use available land and revive Kaitangata’s dwindling population.
However, the project had lost some momentum in the past year for various reasons, including the difficulty for some buyers to meet lending criteria under KiwiSaver and HomeStart.
Like many builders in the district’s trades shortage, van Asperen said he was flat-out with his business and helping run the pre-tertiary level Big River Homes Trades Academy launched this year.
He had no issues with other builders expressing interest in building into the scheme. ‘‘The whole idea was to benefit the district.’’
One of the builders will be working labour-only for him and between them they will build five houses.
Another self-employed builder may build two other houses pending contracts.
Other packages are in various states of consent.
The Clutha District Council has signedoff on a turn-key house and land package to be built on council land that it offered 18 months ago.
It was targeted at first-home buyers struggling to qualify for bank loans, who could buy the house directly from the council.
Promotions group member Evan Dick said it was all starting to come together, though he admitted ‘‘sometimes I wonder what the heck we’ve started’’.
The past two years had been a whirlwind, he said.
‘‘Most of us have got day jobs and it all takes a lot of time.’’
However, he did not begrudge any of it and said perseverance had paid off. ‘‘The whole project’s just snowballed and it’s really starting to gather some momentum.’’
Along with the new houses to be built, new businesses have sprung up in the past year, including a childcare centre and garage.
Not only that, the Kaitangata Community Centre Charitable Trust extension to the town’s church, which will give the town a new meeting hub, is about half through construction and should be finished in November.
As a result of the housing shortage, Kaitangata had no houses for sale, and the last available had multiple offers on it, Dick said.
‘‘I’ve watched this town go backwards for 30 years, and now it’s going forwards.’’
Kaitangata had a long way to go before it was ‘‘the Parnell of South Otago’’ but it was in pretty good shape, he said.