Hon Amy Adams

Minister Responsible for Housing New Zealand

Hon Dr Nick Smith

Minister for Building and Construction

30 June 2017
Rangers Park homes to become social and affordable housing

Forty temporary accommodation homes at Rangers Park village will become social and affordable homes to help Christchurch residents in need of housing, Housing New Zealand Minister Amy Adams and Building and Construction Minister Dr Nick Smith announced today.

Seven of the temporary accommodation homes at Rangers Park village have been sold to Housing New Zealand, with the remaining 33 houses to be sold to first home buyers under the KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme.

“The seven properties to be converted into social houses are high quality, with the right size, layout and design to suit many of our Christchurch families needing a warm, safe place to stay,” Ms Adams says.

“These new homes will help achieve the Government’s aim to reuse temporary accommodation homes as social housing, and will help to increase the social housing supply in Christchurch.”

“The Rangers Park village has played an important part in assisting the Christchurch earthquake recovery by accommodating 240 households during the past four years. We deliberately made a decision to use the site as not just temporary housing but to build it to a quality that it would become available for permanent housing. The demand for temporary housing has been reducing and is now at the point that it is appropriate to sell the homes,” Dr Smith says.

The 40 properties at Rangers Park are a mixture of two, three and four bedroom homes in standalone, townhouse and duplex design styles. Each house has its own lot, title, indoor garage access, double glazing and heat-pump.

“It is Government policy to favour mixed housing developments of social and market homes. This means 33 of the homes will be sold privately. These sales are restricted to owner-occupiers who are first home buyers. The Government is this way able to assist in achieving its broader goal of improving home ownership,” Dr Smith says.

People interested in buying one of properties available to first home buyers are encouraged to register for KiwiSaver HomeStart grant pre-approval with Housing New Zealand, as those with pre-approval will be contacted when the properties are advertised. More information about the KiwiSaver HomeStart grants is available through the Housing New Zealand website.

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