122 | COMMUNITY Bridge Housing Charitable Trust www.gwe.co.nz 1150 Victoria Street, Hamilton 3240 0800 933 727 | 07 838 3119 Geotechnical - Environmental - Land Development Water/Wastewater/Stormwater “GWE Consulting Engineers are proud to support Bridge Housing Charitable Trust” Providing Expertise in Geotechnical and Environmental Engineering • Site Investigations, Slope Stability, Liquefaction and Lateral Spread Assessments • Foundation, Stormwater, Wastewater, Pavement, Retaining Wall Designs • Subdivision, Land Development, Earthworks Fill Control ethosproperty.nz Providing Commercial & Body Corporate Management throughout the region Proudly working with Bridge Housing Charitable Trust Pathways to ownership offer hope The Brian Perry Trust donated parcels of land in Hamilton and in Cambridge which is where the Bridge Housing Charitable Trust completed their first development. T T Virginia Wright “When we built it, we really wanted to include a liveability component and make sure people would enjoy living there.” The Bridge Housing Charitable Trust is Waikato-based Affordable Housing Provider established four years ago with the purpose of creating quality, affordable homes intended to help more New Zealanders into secure housing. Its General Manager is Jennifer Palmer who is also the General Manager of the Brian Perry Trust which is behind the initiative. “Simon Perry is the Chair of both trusts. The Perry family could see that access to housing was something the community needed and decided that was an area they wanted to focus on. They already had some land and Simon’s an experienced property developer, so it made sense,” Jennifer says. The Brian Perry Trust donated parcels of land in Hamilton and in Cambridge which is where the Bridge Housing Charitable Trust completed their first development. Others are underway in Hamilton, Horotiu and Te Awamutu. Additional homes are also being planned in Ngaruawahia bringing the combined total to 170 houses, and that’s just the beginning. Aware of the size of the need the Bridge Housing Charitable Trust intend to grow the pipeline with more land and developments continually coming on stream. The various developments are happening in stages with 35 houses already finished and occupied. Two stages of the Peake Mews development in Cambridge are complete, eight in Stage One and 10 in Stage Two. Another 17 in Cambridge will be finished this year along with 42 in Hamilton and the rest are scheduled for 2027. All the houses are designed to be comfortable, low maintenance and energy efficient. The quality of living they offer has earned Bridge Housing Charitable Trust a place as a finalist in the Homes and Communities Community and Affordable Housing Property category of the Property Industry New Zealand Awards 2026 with the 10 Stage Two houses in Peake Mews. “We’re thrilled to be shortlisted,” says Jennifer. “When we built it, we really wanted to include a liveability component and make sure people would enjoy living there. They’re terraced houses but they share a lot of outdoor spaces and the feedback we’ve had has been great from the residents as well as from other property developers.” Unlike some developers when the people at Bridge Housing Charitable Trust say affordable, they work hard to achieve exactly that. “Building the houses smaller and affordably goes without saying but in itself is not enough,” Jennifer says. “We have a number of programmes in addition to that. At Peake Mews for example we have a 2-bedroom home that costs freehold say $650,000 but we offer a secure home programme, which is a leasehold programme, and means you can buy the home for $330,000 and lease the land, but we’ve taken out all the fishhooks of the old leasehold model.” By that she means a 100-year lease on the land set well below market rates at 1.5% of the land value (around $100 a week), which only goes up by inflation. If they decide to sell, Bridge Housing has an obligation to buy it back paying the original purchase price plus inflation which keeps the affordability intact for the next family and the lease starts again for 100 years. Other programmes offer different forms of financial support from the Trust to provide affordability pathways into housing for as many people as possible. All of the Bridge programmes are designed to bring significant financial benefit to their owners as well as a secure home to live in which is their primary purpose. With over 1000 families on their wait list, it’s obvious that the Bridge Housing Charitable Trust’s decision to focus on housing is already making a tangible difference to many and offering hope to many more.
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