Nelson City Councillor Rachel Sanson Nelson Tasman Housing Trust director Carrie Mozena and Nelson mayor Nick Smith outside the Waimea Road property that will be demolished Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
A development in Nelson will see eight new affordable rental homes built in Nelson South.
In May, the Nelson City Council approved a $1.2 million grant to the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust for the development.
Trust director Carrie Mozena said there was a clear need for more affordable housing in the region.
As of March, there were 261 applicants on the public housing register in Nelson and 141 in Tasman.
Mozena said the trust regularly surveyed housing need in the region, with the most recent results showing there were 630 households in need of affordable housing that were not on the public register.
"So that's over 1000 households in need and frankly, from the calls and emails and visits we get every week, that's the tip of the iceberg, there's a lot of people who are just really struggling and they're not even reaching out for help yet."
The development will cost $4.2 million ($530,000 per home) with two older homes on Waimea Road and Kawai Street South demolished to make way for the new builds.
The eight single storey units will be two bedroom, with photovoltaic panels to reduce energy costs and parking for one car each. At least two of the units will be wheelchair accessible.
The Nelson Tasman Housing trust owns 55 homes across the region, has plans for another 24 in the pipeline. It has a strategic goal of reaching 120 homes by 2028.
"It takes the government and community and philanthropy to make these these homes happen."
The Nelson Tasman Housing Trust plans for a development of 8 affordable rentals. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Nelson Mayor Nick Smith said there was no "single magic bullet" to address the housing problem in Nelson but that partnerships with community housing providers were important and the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust had proven itself to be one of the most effective in the country.
Smith said the terms of the grant meant the trust were legally bound to maintain the houses in perpetuity and keep the rent at less than the market rate.
The Nelson City Council will soon consider big plan changes to allow for intensification and Smith said addressing the need for housing was a case of getting a whole lot of things working more effectively.
"I feel better about the momentum than I have around this challenge for a decade."
The grant came from the council's $12m Housing Reserve, which was established in late 2020 after it sold 142 community housing units to Kāinga Ora.
Nelson City Councillor and Community Housing Acceleration Taskforce chair Rachel Sanson said housing insecurity was a key focus for the taskforce, and a collaborative approach was needed to address it.
"The recent grant to Nelson Tasman Housing Trust, with a four week turnaround, shows how focused council is on supporting the increase of Nelson's stock of community housing as quickly as possible."
Sanson said a change had been made to the housing reserve guidelines to enable local community housing providers and iwi trusts to utilise grants to acquire land.
"We heard time and time again, from all of them, that that was one of the hardest things in terms of, you know, trying to get progress housing developments."
The Nelson Tasman Housing Trust was working to confirm further funding for this development - with applications to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development's affordable housing fund for $1.9m and the Rātā Foundation for $200,000.
All going well, the development was expected to be complete by March 2025.