Napier City Council to concentrate on retirement housing

The Napier City Council is about to start the process of selling its social housing with hopes the three villages, containing 72 homes, will be sold by the end of the year.

Mayor Kirsten Wise said the procure process is in two stages, starting next month with calls for expressions of interest from community housing providers to participate in the procurement process, followed by the request for proposal phase, seeking proposals from those parties to purchase the three villages.

Both processes will run via the New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service (‘GETS’), in all about a nine-month process the council expects to “go through” this year, Wise said.

“We are currently developing specific criteria to assess the expressions of interest and request for proposals when they come in,” she said.

The majority of the units, being single to four-bedroom homes, are occupied, and the procurement process will determine how the sale process will be undertaken.

“The most important thing in this whole process is that we will honour our current tenants and make sure they have a home,” she said. “We want to make sure that there is as little financial pressure as possible on our community and on our tenants.”

Public consultation resulted in the council deciding to sell 72 of its 377 homes, in three of its 12 “villages”, to help cover a shortfall when it comes to maintaining its housing portfolio.

Wise said the council wants to “move away” from social housing and focus on retirement housing.

Set for dispersal are 32 units in the Carlyle Place Village, 28 in Wellesley Place, and 12 in Nelson Place, which had a combined market value of $21.8 million, according to a valuation in 2022, at which time the council decided against selling the complete housing portfolio.

It reviewed the position again early last year, with a decision adopted in the council’s Three-Year Plan to sell the mixture of social housing, with a priority on ensuring future homes for impacted tenants.

The return from the sales will be “ring-fenced” for reinvestment into the remaining housing portfolio, the council said in August.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.