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Penny Wardle/Stuff
Julia Campbell of Kāinga Ora checks out the newly-built one-bedroom homes in Charles St, Blenheim.
People will this week start moving into single-bedroom Kāinga Ora homes in central Blenheim, following a blessing by iwi.
The 10 homes, on the corner of Charles and Richmond streets, are designed to be easy-access, and address an urgent need for smaller social housing.
Julia Campbell, Kāinga Ora director for Nelson, Marlborough and the West Coast, said the homes would be ideal for people as they aged, as they were “a hop, skip and jump from the supermarket and shops”.
“However, this will be a mixed-age community.”
Nine of the 10 homes had already been allocated to people registered with the Ministry for Social Development, which managed public housing, said Campbell.
Some had previously lived on the site in four outdated homes, removed to make way for the 10 new dwellings.
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Four large old state homes on Blenheim’s Charles and Richmond streets in 2020. They have since been replaced with 10 new Kāinga Ora builds.
The development would help address an urgent need for housing in Marlborough, Campbell said.
Of the 216 Marlborough applicants on the public housing register, 54% were waiting for a one-bedroom home.
“We’re looking to increase the number of homes in Blenheim by replacing some of our older homes on large sections that are past their best with additional warm and dry homes,” Campbell said.
Early on Monday morning Rangitāne, Ngāti Rārua and Ngāti Toa kaumatua said a karakia in each of the homes.
Afterwards, neighbour Sue Sexton dropped in for a peek and was impressed.
“It’s been so nice to see the houses built. People of my age can walk into a happy place with the morning sun shining in,” she said. “When I first married we had a state home, but not as nice as this.”
Penny Wardle/Stuff
Julia Campbell in the sun-drenched kitchen of a new Kāinga Ora home on the corner of Richmond and Charles streets.
The homes had been built to a Homestar rating of 6, guaranteeing they were warm, energy efficient and healthy. All had a car park and some had raised gardens.
CMT Group Ltd of Blenheim took a year to complete the development for Kāinga Ora Homes and Communities. The cost was $3.7 million, excluding consultancy fees, authority charges and enabling works.
The project followed the opening of 14 two-bedroom Kāinga Ora Homes in Blenheim’s Brewer St in October 2022.
Abigail Dougherty/Stuff
A new 276-unit housing Kāinga Ora housing development has opened in Auckland CBD.
There were 142 more Kāinga Ora homes in the pipeline for Blenheim by mid-2025, subject to consenting processes and construction timelines.
Kāinga Ora was looking to work in partnership with local iwi, territorial authorities, other government agencies and the private sector to increase the number of homes for people in need. This could include buying completed homes from private developers, replacing older houses on large sections with more intensive modern housing, and buying land before working with partners or developers to build new homes.
Kāinga Ora was landlord to nearly 185,000 New Zealanders in 70,000 homes.
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