{"id":511516,"date":"2026-07-05T23:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T23:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511516\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T23:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T23:21:10","slug":"government-built-inner-city-apartments-finished-a-year-ago-still-sitting-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511516\/","title":{"rendered":"Government-built inner-city apartments finished a year ago still sitting empty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe 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<\/p>\n

Minister of Housing Chris Bishop didn\u2019t address issues surrounding operation of the premises, but told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposition Labour housing spokesman Kieran McAnulty said, \u201cMHUD has no shortage of tenants \u2013 the Government needs to allow K\u0101inga Ora to put people into these homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHomelessness has grown to record numbers because of this Government\u2019s decisions, and it\u2019s the depths of winter. <\/p>\n

\u201cSurely Chris Bishop can do better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

An MHUD spokesperson said it has been in \u201cactive negotiations\u201d with interested CHPs to take over the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut finding one who is able to purchase the site has taken longer than expected,\u201d they said, confirming the property remains owned by the Crown, through the ministry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

Asked why the property had not been put in the hands of Government housing agency K\u0101inga Ora, they said that given the intention to contract a CHP, it would not be appropriate to have interim tenanting arrangements with the agency.<\/p>\n

They said K\u0101inga Ora was focused on the Government\u2019s turnaround plan<\/a> of renewal and maintaining existing stock, which was announced by Bishop after a new K\u0101inga Ora board was appointed in 2024 and directed to come up with such a plan by the end of that year.<\/p>\n

The Government, concerned with what it said was K\u0101inga Ora\u2019s unsustainable debt, commissioned a review by former short-term Prime Minister and National Party leader Bill English before adopting the plan.<\/p>\n

MHUD says it won\u2019t be commenting on which CHPs it has been talking with until negotiations are complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cCosts to the ministry for maintenance and security in the meantime have been minimal but are commercially sensitive given ongoing negotiations,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The problem was first reported by Hawkes Bay Today<\/a> at the end of November last year. <\/p>\n

A request for further comment was made to Napier MP Katie Nimon.<\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier and with 53 years in the media and news industry – the last 39 consecutively in Hawke\u2019s Bay since starting a second stint with now-former Napier newspaper the Daily Telegraph in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The three-storey apartment block at 124 Wellesley Rd, 30 flats owned by the Government’s Ministry of Housing and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,24752,8212,16200,1972,5907,23778,71946,46009,254527,108497,15902,2686,3607,111,43,139,69,10715,7806,37451,6100,99689,102,379],"class_list":["post-511516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-ago","tag-anyone","tag-apartments","tag-block","tag-completed","tag-empty","tag-finished","tag-flats","tag-governmentbuilt","tag-governmentowned","tag-innercity","tag-moving","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-remains","tag-sign","tag-sitting","tag-still","tag-threestorey","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}