88 | COMMUNITY Advance Build: Papakainga Housing Karen Phelps One very special community indeed 2f the ha site ha has been dedicated to housing with ten homes currently completed and resource consent lodged for another five. Seventy-year-old Ivan Hauraki has devoted the last four years to establishing a papakāinga on Māori family land in Ngāwhā near Kaikohe so his whānau have a place to call home for life. And now he’d like to help others do the same. “When we started we had to forge our own pathway. Now this project is about more than Must our papakāinga and we want to share what we’ve achieved with other whānau and hapu. Ζ get visitors to our papakāinga every week that want to know how we’ve done it,” he says. The term papakāinga can dierent meanings depending on the context but in this case refers to a group of houses, of three or more, on whenua Māori as a ‘community’, which may include broader support and occupant involvement. Ζvan acknowledges that Māori land proMects can often be challenging to progress due to multiple ownership situations. In this case the three families involved sat around a table over a weekend to decide the best use of the land and identified a need for housing. The project is owned by the family’s Oraruwharo Ahuwhenua Trust. “I talked to my siblings and family and decided to put all of my mother’s shares into a family trust,” explains Ivan. “So all the beneficiaries from my family come under the ownership of that trust. We all went that way in the end and have six trustees who govern things.” Of the 9ha site 2ha has been dedicated to housing with ten homes currently completed and resource consent lodged for another five. Te Puni Kōkiri, the Government’s principal policy advisor on Māori wellbeing and development, supported the project. One stand out feature of the project is the speed at which the build has taken place – just eleven months from signing of the contracts to completion. The Trust built through local company Advance Build, which prefabricates transportable homes o site at its purpose-built factory facility, which is now in Kerikeri. In the development there’s a variety of designs spanning two to four bedrooms. While homes were built to suit the needs of particular people they have also been designed to be multi-purpose. Some feature ramps, wheelchair accessible showers, and has room for extended family to ensure they are fit for purpose for life. Advance Build not only designed and built the homes but also lodged the consents with council and completed the foundations, decks, verandas and carports as well as service connections on site. Ζvan says the benefits of prefabricated homes meant no weather delays during construction, and eɝciencies with trades working simultaneously along the production line. The project has its own stormwater, wastewater, tank water supply with option of bore water in future, tarsealed roads and street lighting ensuring it is a real community. A major driver of the project was to provide housing for the elderly so they could come home to retire and have a better quality of life. The rents are aordable – calculated with an eye to market rent but also the income of the occupants. The Trust is also looking at how it could use the land to help future generations into home ownership. The family is also investigating income making potential to ensure the longterm viability of the project with an eventual aim to make the housing rent-free. An avocado orchard is one venture being explored. The benefits of papakāinga were evident last Christmas with 130 people of all ages on the site for Christmas dinner. “Everyone can look out for and help each other so papakāinga is also about wellbeing. For example some of the residents’ health was not that good when they arrived but there’s been a big dierence in the six months they’ve been there already. The knowledge and wisdom of all these elderly people is now all in one place. A big comment was at Christmas was that it was good to come back to a place and they could come back at any time with all their nannies and koros are all there. It’s given our families somewhere they know they belong and, no matter where the live in the world, can come back at any time and have a place to call home.” 34 Klinac Lane,Waipapa 0246 Kerikeri, New Zealand theteam@northlandplumbing.co.nz www.northlandplumbing.co.nz Proud to Support Advance Build 09 407 9157 ONSITE ACCESS 09 408 0004 projects@onsiteaccess.co.nz Provider of: • Scaffolding • Edge protection • Fall nets • Site fencing • EWP’s • General hire equipment Keeping Northland safe at heights since 2005
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