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Community project: Helping families into home ownership

Our Taranaki based team, Kate & Graham Wellington, have been building homes throughout the Taranaki and Manawatu regions over many years. Last year they began building new city council units at Papaioea Place.

With the great success of that project which will have 50 units built at its completion, 30 of those are already finished with tenants living in them from February 2019. The remaining 20 are set to be completed Friday 28 February 2020. With stage two of this council project starting in March 2020 that will see a further 28 units built.

BOTANICAL ROAD PROJECT

Now their next community project in Palmerston North is building on former state housing land, located on Botanical Road. This land has been vacant for over a decade.

The first new homes built will help five whānau into home ownership through a rent-to-buy scheme.

As Stuff stated on Feb 14, “The $3 million project will be managed by Te Tihi, a Whānau Ora alliance that provides "backbone" services for its nine iwi, hāpu and Māori member groups”.

The layout of new houses will include a shared space where the families can create their own sense of community. There will be three, three-bedroom homes using Latitude Homes plan NZ 99.9, one home with four bedrooms using plan NZ 117, and one with five bedrooms using plan NZB 140.

This project is one of six around New Zealand selected by Te Puni Kōkiri to trial the Te Ara Mauwhare model of pathways to home ownership (rent-to-buy scheme).

Chief executive Materoa Mar said the whānau selected to benefit were involved in the planning, and would continue to be supported as they discovered the reality of maintaining their own homes and living in a small community.

"IT'S NOT A QUICK SOLUTION. IT'S NOT JUST GIVING PEOPLE A HOUSE AND LEAVING THEM TO GET ON WITH IT. 

The homes being built are not elaborate, because affordability is a key issue for this project. These homes built by Latitude Homes will be well-insulated, and designed to make best use of materials and of the land just like all homes built by Latitude. Our ethos is about making home building affordable for all kiwis, so our Taranaki team are very pleased to working on such a great project that hopefully proves beneficial to its destined owners and look forward to working on many projects similar to this.

There was a blessing, on February 24, of the 2210-square-metre site where these five new homes will be built and a small community will develop and thrive.

Are you wanting to take the plunge into building a new affordable home with Latitude Homes? Contact one of our sales people in your area and we will discuss your options. Too easy!