32 | For all your bathroom and plumbing requirements, specialist knowledge and expertise, talk to our experienced team today. Plumbing World Gisborne Cnr Bright & Kahutia St | Ph. 06 869 0068 plumbingworld.co.nz Proud to support Iconiq Construction Trust Tairāwhiti: ICONIQ Group REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Apprentice training academy fills need T Kelly Deeks A new apprentice training academy in Gisborne is helping to ease the region’s housing and labour crisis. A new apprentice training academy in Gisborne is a leading-edge solution for the city’s housing and labour crises, as 40 apprentices are hoped to join the academy over the coming two years, prefabricating components from local products while learning all the skills they will need to run their own businesses. A partnership between Trust Tairāwhiti and ICONIQ Group, the academy has been running for 12 months and has trained 18 apprentices so far. “We have been working with Trust Tairāwhiti for the past 24 months, creating synergies and dealing with the right people. A lot of our goals align, which are to create economic prosperity for Gisborne locals and fix the massive housing shortage that Gisborne is currently facing.” ICONIQ Group saw the need for more qualified local tradespeople when it first started working in Gisborne. “We found there were limited subcontractors there so one of our goals with the training academy is to create qualified carpenters who have the confidence to go out on their own,” says ICONIQ Group managing director Todd Scrafton. “ We recognised a lot of people working on Government contracts in Gisborne had come from out of town, and all the prenail framing was coming in from outside of Gisborne. We however have a big emphasis on employing local and buying local, so we have built this facility and our apprentices are using local products, and we have created efficiencies within our own processes.” Todd says training apprentices to be business owners alone will change the economic outlook for Gisborne. “We predominantly hire Māori youth. We want to create strong mana from the academy with a focus on iwi engagement. The end goal is to create confident small business owners because that is where it is lacking in Gisborne.” These apprentices and their mentors are the only actual trades employees of ICONIQ Group, which is primarily a development, project management, and main contracting company within the construction sector. ICONIQ Group engages 40% to 50% Māori-owned businesses in Gisborne. “This goes back to us trying to create further economic prosperity for businesses that wouldn’t otherwise get the opportunity.” ICONIQ Group is developing and building new homes for Kāinga Ora, and Todd says the current handful of builders and subcontractors in Gisborne is not able to handle the 606 new homes that are required to fix the current need for social housing. “That’s just the current need, there is more need coming in the future. That’s approximately 1500 people and roughly 50% of those are children waiting for homes. There are just not enough homes in Gisborne to keep up with the population growth that has occurred. We are trying to do something about it.” ICONIQ Group has 39 homes under construction right now and another 51 either in design or waiting to get through Gisborne District Council consent uplift. This amount has been pulled back from the 93 targeted by ICONIQ when it became apparent council started pushing back on consent approvals. “We’ll put the other 43 in once we get clear guidance from council, as it is very unclear and difficult to navigate currently.” Meanwhile at the academy, the apprentices are using local engineered timber from Wood Engineering Technology Gisborne to build a three-storey walk-up apartment building, a first-ever for Gisborne and Todd says the first of more that will be coming to the city. “These are affordable and healthy housing solutions for the government and the open market, maximising the land value for low-income families to buy their first home or provide social housing. We are building these homes to a 6 Homestar rating, so they are above the current standards set by the New Zealand building code.” Proud to be associated with Iconiq Construction
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