{"id":567704,"date":"2026-08-13T10:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/567704\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T10:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:36:13","slug":"work-to-resume-on-stalled-wellington-social-housing-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/567704\/","title":{"rendered":"Work to resume on stalled Wellington social housing development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Work is set to resume on a major social housing development in Wellington, three years after it was stopped due to a cost blowout.<\/p>\n

But the K\u0101inga Ora Arlington development in Mount Cook will build 104 social homes \u2013 about a third of the original plan for 301 homes.<\/p>\n

Housing Minister Chris Bishop said he was disappointed it had taken so long for work to get back underway.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve just got to get development on the site, and I\u2019ve been pretty frustrated by the lack of progress for a while,” Bishop said. <\/p>\n

Mayor Andrew Little was with Bishop at the site today to announce the revised plans. <\/p>\n

“I know a lot of people have been waiting to see development happen,” Little said. “The Government indicated to us some years ago that they didn\u2019t think they could go through with the original planned development, so we\u2019ve been talking about what could happen.”<\/p>\n

\"Wellington<\/p>\n

Wellington Mayor Andrew Little and Housing Minister Chris Bishop. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Development was put on hold by the then-government in 2023, just before the election, due to the budget ballooning to $419 million, up from $296 million originally budgeted in 2021.<\/p>\n

“That cost escalation would have led to an eye-watering cost of around $1.4 million per apartment, prompting a redesign of the development,” Bishop said.<\/p>\n

The site had been sitting vacant since development stalled.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve been trying to find a value-for-money solution. We can\u2019t spend 1.3 million bucks per apartment and frankly, most people would say 300 social housing units would have been extremely high-density housing,” Bishop said. <\/p>\n

“The point is: we\u2019re getting on with it.” <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The K\u0101inga Ora Arlington development in Mount Cook has been sitting for years due to a cost blowout. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

The plan also includes a $6 million cash injection for Wellington City to go towards supporting housing services for vulnerable people.<\/p>\n

“For a city that has a homelessness problem and a rough sleeper problem, this is very welcome,” Little said. <\/p>\n

“What we find with a lot of people who are on the streets is that it\u2019s not just enough to provide a roof over their heads, it\u2019s actually other support that\u2019s needed as well.”<\/p>\n

The proposal included one seven-storey building containing 55 one-bed and 37 two-bed apartments.<\/p>\n

There would be 12 four-bed homes in a terraced formation.<\/p>\n

The plan was still subject to the council approving a variation to its existing lease. <\/p>\n

Construction was planned to start in 2027 and finish in 2029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Work is set to resume on a major social housing development in Wellington, three years after it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69,814,550,52],"class_list":["post-567704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-property","tag-social-issues","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567704","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=567704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}