Kāinga Ora cans hundreds of social housing building projects after review, takes up to $180m hit
Kāinga Ora is axing hundreds of social housing projects because they “no longer represent value for money”.
The state housing agency concedes that canning the projects means it will take a hit of up to $180 million that has already been spent on scoping and planning work.
Kāinga Ora has also decided to offload 20% of its vacant land following a review of its operations because the land is no longer deemed necessary for social housing.
It includes a 1.5ha plot of vacant land in Albany which the agency paid nearly $20m for in 2018 but has sat vacant ever since.
The Herald revealed last year that taxpayers had forked out an additional $1m on consultants, architectural services, legal advice, valuations, arborists, geotech reports and council rates for the property on Don McKinnon Drive.
The vacant plot will now be sold off.
Today’s announcements come as part of a major “reset” the agency is undertakingafter concerns emerged that it had lost focus on its core role as a social housing landlord and veered too far into the role of property development.
This followed a review led by former Prime Minister Sir Bill English that found the agency’s debt had jumped from $2.7 billion in 2018 to $12.3b by June 2023, and was set to increase to $23b by 2028.
Bill English wrote that report using money put aside for public housing.
The irony.
By killing off public housing, National decimated the construction industry and many workers left for Australia.
This isn’t social policy, it’s public housing vandalism, a self mutilation masquerading as cost cutting and that’s the kind of malice right wing voters love.
The collective contempt for state tenants is welded onto the cultural bigotry of our calcified political tropes and reactionary voters like bashing state tenants, beneficiaries and Māori with all the glee of book burners.
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NZ was on a roll .State of the art Ferries and up to date ports for them along with 35000 new houses and the thousands of jobs that were well paid .Those people were spending that money in NZ daily and paying taxes ,to give to landlords ,.This bunch of idiots decided they could not handle such progress so scuttled everything that was of long term benefit to all of NZ .nOW WE ARE SPEEDING OVER THE FISCAL CLIFF TO OBLIVION .
Then there is this… the Government instructing Levy to gut health and this was the result…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564931/hospital-staff-concerned-about-combined-cleaner-security-officer-roles
While this study tells us what most should already know, the timing is fitting
Youth offending drops with safe, stable housing – study
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564781/youth-offending-drops-with-safe-stable-housing-studyYouth offending drops with safe, stable housing – study
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564781/youth-offending-drops-with-safe-stable-housing-study
And can someone please explain to the Government (and a number of economic commentators) the cost of housing is more than merely the cost of the house itself. Rates and insurance are also a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/564598/quarter-of-households-rely-on-government-housing-support
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/06/23/nowhere-to-go-for-more-than-100000-kiwis/
These people have fallen off the governments cliff so the government doesn’t care. Another matters which shows why we are far worse off under this government and this number won’t e the true number, it will be much higher.
Yes, Gordon and Bishop is talking with a fork tongue saying his policies are going to increase the number of houses being built, but for who, not the poor, working class or middle-income families the ones that actually need somewhere decent to live. Instead, Bishop is busy helping developers who are building for the rich and at the higher end. Building up is fine but it should not affect people’s existing homes by blocking light and eroding privacy and yet this is occurring. When developers wanted to build high rise townhouses in Remuera the bald one quickly put a stop to this development.
Ironically, $19.255 million paid for 1.5 Ha on Don McKinnon Drive is within $2 m of the price for which the Housing Corporation of New Zealand, forerunner of Kāinga Ora, sold 127 hectares of Albany including Don McKinnon Drive to Neil Group in 1994; check out my article ‘Ticky Tacky Death of a Dream’ in Metro, June 2011. Of course, there’s been quite a bit of inflation since 1994 and the land had to be developed with services, as in 1994 it was basically a bunch of horse paddocks at the end of the motorway, but even so, you wonder what might have been had HCNZ held onto it.
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