The three-storey apartment block at 124 Wellesley Rd, 30 flats owned by the Government’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and still unoccupied 12 months after being completed. Photo / Doug Laing
Minister of Housing Chris Bishop didn’t address issues surrounding operation of the premises, but told Hawke’s Bay Today, “I am also immensely frustrated at the situation in Napier. I am limited in what I can say at the moment, but I can assure you that work is underway and hope to say more soon.”
Opposition Labour housing spokesman Kieran McAnulty said, “MHUD has no shortage of tenants – the Government needs to allow Kāinga Ora to put people into these homes.
“Homelessness has grown to record numbers because of this Government’s decisions, and it’s the depths of winter.
“Surely Chris Bishop can do better than this.”
Ministry of Social Development Housing Register details to the end of the June quarter are not yet available, but at the end of March, 468 applicants in Napier needed homes, part of a nationwide queue of 19,704.
An MHUD spokesperson said it has been in “active negotiations” with interested CHPs to take over the site.
“But finding one who is able to purchase the site has taken longer than expected,” they said, confirming the property remains owned by the Crown, through the ministry.
“We are not working to a fixed timeframe to sell the site, as we want to secure a CHP that is suitable and at an appropriate cost to the ministry.”
Asked why the property had not been put in the hands of Government housing agency Kāinga Ora, they said that given the intention to contract a CHP, it would not be appropriate to have interim tenanting arrangements with the agency.
They said Kāinga Ora was focused on the Government’s turnaround plan of renewal and maintaining existing stock, which was announced by Bishop after a new Kāinga Ora board was appointed in 2024 and directed to come up with such a plan by the end of that year.
The Government, concerned with what it said was Kāinga Ora’s unsustainable debt, commissioned a review by former short-term Prime Minister and National Party leader Bill English before adopting the plan.
MHUD says it won’t be commenting on which CHPs it has been talking with until negotiations are complete.
“Costs to the ministry for maintenance and security in the meantime have been minimal but are commercially sensitive given ongoing negotiations,” they said.
The problem was first reported by Hawkes Bay Today at the end of November last year.
A request for further comment was made to Napier MP Katie Nimon.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier and with 53 years in the media and news industry – the last 39 consecutively in Hawke’s Bay since starting a second stint with now-former Napier newspaper the Daily Telegraph in 1987.