Larger families housing winners

Larger Hutt families are the initial winners from plans for vacant Housing New Zealand land in Epuni.

Initial plans for 25 four and five-bedroom houses have been welcomed by both Lower Hutt mayor Ray Wallace and Huttbased Labour list MP Ginny Andersen.

The plan is to build 200 new homes over two years.

The homes would go to locals and there was clear need for big houses, a HNZ leaflet said.

‘‘There are more families and people in the Hutt Valley that need modern, warm and dry housing, so we are building more homes to help meet the increasing demand.

‘‘Careful thought has been put into the design to ensure the new homes are modern, attractive and carpeted, insulated, double gazed and filled with light,’’ the leaflet said.

Construction is planned to begin later this year, with the first tenants moving in late next year.

Wallace said he was particularly pleased the development would be a mix of social, affordable and market homes.

The council’s position had always been that the development should not just be for social housing. Large areas of social housing were often ‘‘stigmatised’’ unfairly and the council wanted to avoid that.

He understood the development would include KiwiBuild homes and said there was a clear need for affordable homes for first-home buyers.

Andersen said she was pleased that progress had at last been made.

Although HNZ did not need a notified resource consent, it had done so to give people the opportunity to see the design and comment.

That it wanted to work positively with the community was a good sign for the rest of the development, she said.