The government is still trying to sell 35 empty townhouses on the K\u0101piti Coast, more than 18 months after buying the brand-new units for almost $22 million from a developer whose project stalled.<\/p>\n
A Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT) spokesperson said on Wednesday it was negotiating with a prospective buyer for some of its holdings and hoped to sell the remaining properties.<\/p>\n
“While current market conditions are contributing to some delays, the Ministry remains optimistic about achieving positive outcomes for the community and all parties involved.”<\/p>\n
In early 2025, the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – before merging with several departments to become mega-ministry MCERT in July – bought all but four houses in the Utauta St complex, opposite Waikanae Primary School and a stone’s throw away from the train station.<\/p>\n
The ministry had agreed in 2022 to pre-purchase 10 of the houses from developer Utauta Development under the Build Ready Development Pathway, a scheme by the previous Labour government to build houses in high-need areas.<\/p>\n
The ministry further agreed to underwrite another 25 houses.<\/p>\n
A briefing paper at that time said the development had stalled and “will not proceed with Crown support” because of a weak housing market and expensive costs.<\/p>\n
Utauta Development triggered the underwrite clause in early 2025, forcing taxpayers to take over 25 more houses.<\/p>\n
MCERT said it would continue working with suitable parties, including community housing providers, iwi and private purchasers, to sell the houses.<\/p>\n
HUD told Stuff last November it was in the process of selling 10 houses: “In a low-sales market, the ministry will continue to balance the pace of working with parties for a sale outcome and the return of Crown funds.”<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government is still trying to sell 35 empty townhouses on the K\u0101piti Coast, more than 18 months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-574597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574597","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=574597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}