When a five-storey state housing block was proposed in a wealthy Auckland suburb, residents warned it would be unsafe, disruptive, and ugly. Now it's built, do they still feel the same way?
The project got off to the worst possible start. In the first week after tenants moved in, police were called to a Kāinga Ora development in Epsom after reports of drug dealing and fighting in one of the units.
Residents reported screaming from the upper floors of the modern, five-level apartment block on Banff Ave.
"People were like 'I told you so' and 'What did they expect?', said Pete Goffin, who lives opposite the housing block. For many residents, it confirmed their worst fears about placing dozens of the most vulnerable people in society in their quiet, idyllic neighbourhood.
One neighbour didn't wait to find out what would happen, deciding to sell up before the building was finished in March last year.
But since that bumpy beginning, many residents are now asking whether their fears about the state housing block were overstated.
"The people over there are wonderful," said Goffin, an electrician who grew up in a state house in Pt Chevalier. "They're quiet, no problems. I wish it was a three-storey, but at least it's not seven - that's what we're zoned for now."
The project was controversial when it was first proposed by Housing New Zealand (now Kāinga Ora) in 2018.
At a community meeting at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart church on Banff Ave, residents expressed their anger that Housing NZ had gained resource consent to replace two single-storey buildings with a huge 25-unit building without first consulting them.
They warned the development would be an eyesore on a street of single and double-storey standalone homes; that it would swallow up all the car parks; and that it would make it unsafe for their children. There was talk of drugs, fights, prostitution and orgies.
Local MP David Seymour had to step in to defend Housing NZ staff when the meeting threatened to boil over.
Former Housing Minister Phil Twyford then threw fuel on the fire when he suggested anyone who didn't like the Epsom proposal could "move to Pōkeno".
Similar battles have played out in suburbs around the country as Kāinga Ora rapidly expands its public housing stock. Its preferred approach is "pepper potting" state housing, or scattering its houses among private homes across a suburb, as it is doing in large-scale redevelopments in Mt Roskill and Māngere.
But it is also constructing high-rise towers and entire streets of state housing in the central city, Manukau and elsewhere in a bid to address the soaring wait list - with occasional resistance. A proposal to build 37 state houses in Silverdale was suspended last month after residents' protests that it would ruin the character of the area and dent their property values.
At Banff Ave, Kāinga Ora pushed ahead with the apartment block, undeterred by residents' concerns, and it took in its first tenants in the middle of last year.
Residents on the street agree on one thing: it is larger than they would have liked. But concerns about anti-social behaviour, a lack of parking, and falling property values have not eventuated, or are not as bad as predicted, neighbours said. The sky has not fallen in, many of them said - it has just been obscured a little.
Kāinga Ora said there had been no further police callouts, and it had received just one complaint from a neighbour earlier this year, regarding loud music in one unit.
"There haven't been any problems to my knowledge," said Trish Nicholls, who lives in the shadow of the building. She first moved into her semi-detached brick home in 1987, where her brother and father had previously lived. "With the tenants, they're all quiet. No noise, no radios, or TVs or parties or anything like that."
Her vegetable garden and her clothesline were now in shade for much of the day, but she said those were "trivial" concerns. "That's really my only complaint," she said, before catching herself. "That's not a complaint, it's an observation."
David Seymour, the MP for Epsom, agreed: "You would have to say that overall, the behavioural aspects have not been as bad as they were."
At the height of the public opposition to the building, Seymour was accused of discrimination after warning constituents in a letter that their new neighbours could have "mental health issues".
Asked if he had reflected on those comments, Seymour said he stood by them. At the original Housing NZ homes on Banff Ave, residents had reported being harassed while going for a run and witnessed public urination, he said.
"Now, I think it's fair to say that we haven't had those problems in the past year or so and the past couple of years . . . Nevertheless, there's still a lot of concern about the size of it, and at least one person who's left as a result."
The person Seymour was referring to, who declined to be named, lived on the street for 14 years and adored his home. He was not against public housing but lobbied for a development that fitted in with the street. He suggested a three-storey retirement village, which would honour the site's past as a nursing home.
"Obviously, we failed abysmally," he told the Herald. The building was far larger than he envisioned and jammed up against the footpath.
"You've got clotheslines 2m off the road where you get old ladies' undies and bras hanging out there," he said.
Fed up with his dealings with Kāinga Ora and concerned about how the building would affect his neighbourhood, he sold up in January 2021 for $3.2 million and moved to Mt Eden. Five months later, the house received a new rateable value of $4m.
"Some people go, 'Oh, shut up. What are you talking about? That's a lot of money'," he said. "Yeah. But in terms of being able to buy an equivalent, we had no chance."
Other residents asked why Kāinga Ora didn't sell the $20m site and build in a cheaper, more suitable location. A spokesman said the Banff Ave site was well-located for public housing tenants because it was close to public transport, shops and other community services.
New zoning rules mean the Kāinga Ora development, just back from busy Manukau Rd, is unlikely to dominate the landscape for long. There are five multi-storey projects going up nearby and parts of the street are zoned for seven storeys. The house of the resident who sold was immediately demolished, and he expects it to be replaced by a much larger building.
When the Herald visited the Kāinga Ora apartment block, a resident sat smoking on his outdoor patio.
Al, as he asked to be called, was one of the first tenants in the building. He had worked as a manager for liquor stores for 34 years and owned his own home but after being hospitalised with septicemia he could no longer work or pay rent on a mortgage. He had been living a relatively comfortable life until one day he suddenly wasn't, and joined the 200,000 New Zealanders living in a Kāinga Ora house.
Now 83 years old, he loved his home on the street-front.
"Being on the ground floor here, I tend to talk to the locals in the street. They come past and say hi, sometimes get me a coffee. I've been asked to barbecues and weddings and the odd 21st birthdays down the road."
He maintained a tiny garden outside his apartment. On his patio, he had planted parsley and mint. Daffodil bulbs were starting to emerge in a pot.
"There were threats that a whole lot of people were going to move out because of us," he said. "But yeah, maybe it's a bit of a community now."
