Controversial 30-home social housing subdivision in Kawakawa aired on Saturday

Land behind Kawakawa’s Star Hotel, where Far North Holdings plans to build a 30-home housing development.

Controversial plans for a 30-home social housing subdivision behind Kawakawa’s main street will be aired at a public meeting on Saturday.

Far North Holdings – the commercial trading and asset management arm of the Far North District Council – is proposing to build 18 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom units.

The development’s site is between the Hunter Star Hotel, on Kawakawa’s main street, and the Waiomio Stream.

The plan is aimed to help address a severe shortage of housing in the town.

However, many locals are concerned the land is prone to flooding. There are also concerns about vulnerable families living so close to a pub, with gambling facilities, and the effects of water runoff to surrounding business.

Far North Holdings chief executive Andy Nock said the units, in six two-storey blocks, would be a mix of affordable rentals aimed at low-income workers, kaumātua and kuia.

They would ease a critical housing shortage and help the council secure $25.6m from the Government’s Infrastructure Acceleration Fund to upgrade Kawakawa infrastructure, which he said was “bursting at the seams”.

To claim the full amount, 180 new homes would have to be built in Kawakawa by 2030. Nock said the flood risk would be addressed by raising the land by 1.8m, above the one-in-100-year flood level.

Many urban areas in Northland, including Whangārei’s city centre, were in one-in-100-year flood zones.

“It’s simply a matter of adapting to those changing circumstances, which is why we’re raising the site.

“If you think back a few years, we had to do the same when we built the library in Kawakawa. We raised it up and have no issues at all with flooding,” he said.

Nock said Kawakawa was a small town, so any flat land near the town centre would be close to a pub.

Kawakawa Business Association chairman Malcolm Francis said the town “definitely” needed more social housing, but the proposal was in the wrong place.

“Why would you put people in harm’s way, given that it’s a flood plain?

“These guys are going through protocol and saying it’s the best site that they’ve got, but there’s got to be other sites.”

Northland Regional Council hazard maps showed much of the land was a one-in-10-year flood zone.

Francis said raising the land might protect the residents, but it increased the risk to neighbouring businesses.

“They’re going to build a two-metre bund and house these people on top, but that’s going to bring more water on to the existing businesses there.

“They’re saying it’s only going to raise flood levels by 5 millimetres, but given the sort of weather events we’ve got coming down on us at the moment, can you guarantee it’s 5mm?

“I guarantee it’s not a guarantee at all.”

Nock and FNDC and Ngāti Hine Health Trust representatives will be at the community meeting on Saturday from 10am to 12pm at the building site.

If wet, the meeting will be at the Kawakawa Vintage Railway site.