Emily Henderson: Kamo housing investment great news for future first-home buyers

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins at a housing announcement in Kerikeri last week with fellow Labour MPs and local leaders.

Talking to people in our community, I often hear concerns about the shortage of affordable housing. A safe, stable home base provides the foundation for a good life, whatever your age and circumstances.

But for children especially, the impact includes poor health from run-down, overcrowded homes, family dysfunction due to worsening poverty, and families shifting constantly in search of cheaper rent but at the expense of schooling, leading to increased social disconnection and poorer futures. Get the basics right – a stable, secure home - and just about everything else will flow. Neglect the basics, and the downstream impacts are massive, not just for the individual but for the whole community.

So it was great to get the news just before Waitangi Day from Housing Minister Megan Woods that Whangārei will benefit from $10.3 million from the Government’s Infrastructure Acceleration Fund for critical transport infrastructure to unlock the land for several thousand new homes, including more state homes and more affordable builds, which will offer more opportunities for first-home buyers.

Although the council has long earmarked Springs Flat, Kamo as a potential area for housing, the lack of available funds to replace an old, single-lane timber bridge and to build a new roundabout on State Highway 1 had stymied development opportunities. The new roundabout on SH1 will have an arterial road and shared user path, connecting future homes in Springs Flat with services, education and job opportunities.

Whangārei MP Emily Henderson says the Government’s latest housing investment is great news for future first-home buyers.

We need this housing. Whangārei has one of the highest population growth rates in New Zealand, as well as – something perhaps less acknowledged – some of the highest rates of poverty. This is why this Government already recognised us as an area of high housing need with extra funding for new state housing builds, several starting this year. It also comes on top of the extra Government investment late last year into the Kamo/city shared path, and the increases to the First Home Grant caps for new builds to $800,000, making it easier to enter the housing market in Whangārei.

This new Waitangi funding is another major boost to our long-term future as a community. It is expected to open up approximately 160 hectares of greenfield land, eventually allowing for up to 3,000 new homes across multiple sites in the city. Up to 1,000 are expected over the first 10 to 15 years, enabling Whangārei to better keep pace with expected growth.

The Housing Acceleration Fund is part of this Government’s recognition that community development, housing and infrastructure cannot be left to the market alone. That approach has obviously not worked for us here, and since councils and ratepayers aren’t able to make up the shortfall, this Government is backing communities and enabling the investments that make growth possible.

We do this because we realise that investing in well-planned housing reaps huge benefits for NZ. Secure housing means more productive, healthier people who have better outcomes in jobs and education. When people around us are secure, so are we all.