Meeting to discuss Epuni housing development

Amit Kumar hopes to get good news at a meeting this weekend to discuss plans for vacant Housing New Zealand land in Epuni.

The empty sections have long been a frustration to MPs and Lower Hutt mayor Ray Wallace, who have all called for urgent building action.

In April, then-Labour leader Andrew Little used one of the vacant sites to announce the party’s plans to build 400 homes on empty HNZ land in Lower Hutt.

Kumar, who lives next to a vacant section in Epuni, received a letter from HNZ inviting him to a meeting on Saturday.

‘‘We are planning to redevelop our vacant land in Epuni ... We would really like to hear from you about our Epuni redevelopment,’’ it read.

Kumar, who works as a cleaner and rents his former HNZ property from a private landlord, said he would love to buy a house on the vacant land.

‘‘Hopefully they will build something that is affordable. They will not build something that costs $600,000 and call it affordable.’’

HNZ has also written to private property owners in Durham Cres, asking if they are willing to sell their properties so they can be included in the proposed development.

Durham Cres resident Bob Osborne planned to take a long list of questions to the meeting.

The 57-year-old runs a Facebook page advocating for tiny houses, and hoped HNZ looked into what type of housing was needed before settling on a design.

‘‘It is important they get the design right.’’

Epuni community worker Julia Milne hoped HNZ came up with an innovative design.

There was a push for infill housing in Lower Hutt, and she said that was not the way to build strong communities.

Wallace agreed that getting the design right, and listening to the community, were the keys to any successful development.

He hoped any development would be a mixture of private and public housing. He would oppose any development that was all social housing and featured multistorey buildings.

‘‘We have seen in the past: If it is all HNZ stock it does not work.’’

Area manager Stephen Wilson said HNZ was working on a ‘‘master-plan’’ for 1.88 hectares of vacant land, which could accommodate up to 200 new homes.

Feedback from Saturday’s meeting will be fed into the planning process and residents would be provided with detailed plans at a later date.