The mayor and deputy mayor, councillors, council staff, iwi, MPs and political candidates have been invited, with Grant McCallum and Shane Jones — the newly-selected Northland candidates for National and New Zealand First, respectively — so far confirming their attendance.
The meeting is being organised by community groups Our Kerikeri and Vision Kerikeri.
Both groups say they support expanded social housing in the Far North but have concerns about issues such as density, security, parking and inadequate infrastructure, and especially a lack of town planning and the resulting ad hoc development of Kerikeri’s town centre.
The meeting follows a flurry of Kāinga Ora project announcements in the town after years of shrinking social housing stock across the Far North.
In particular, Gemscott has lodged resource consent applications for three adjoining properties on Clark Rd and King St, where the company plans to build a three-storey building with 12 apartments and 14 two-storey duplex townhouses for Kāinga Ora.
In February MHUD announced it had bought a 3.3-hectare property on Hall Rd for a 56-lot subdivision originally planned by Sir Owen Glenn. At least 30 per cent would be set aside for social or affordable housing.
In March housing charity Habitat for Humanity opened a 10-home development on Kerikeri Rd next to the BP service station, and earlier this month the Advocate revealed Kāinga Ora had bought a property at 115 Kerikeri Rd, next to the SPCA op shop.
No plans have been drawn up as yet for the 115 Kerikeri Rd site.
Vision Kerikeri said the main aim of the meeting was to “inform and engage our community, helping address questions and concerns”.
Our Kerikeri chairwoman Annika Dickey said the two groups had been unable to persuade the council, Kāinga Ora or Gemscott to engage meaningfully and listen to community concerns.
While resource consent applications for the Clark Rd/King St proposals had not yet been approved, indications so far suggested they would not be publicly notified.
“As a result, we believe our only recourse is to bring the conversation to them,” she said.
A survey by Our Kerikeri in January showed 70 per cent of respondents didn’t support intensive social housing in the town’s commercial centre.
The main concerns were lack of infrastructure, wrong location, and the size and density of the development.
A large majority, 85 per cent, called for a Kerikeri masterplan to guide development before any major, irreversible changes were made to the town centre.
Other significant social housing developments are planned in Whangārei, Kaikohe, Kawakawa and Kaitāia.
Despite the recent flurry of new projects, figures obtained by the Advocate show the number of public homes in Northland - 2282 as of the end of February this year - is still lower than the 2012 figure of 2338.
Social housing stock is on the way up again, however, after hitting a low of 2179 in 2017.
In the Far North the recovery has a lot further to go.
Despite having some of New Zealand’s worst deprivation, the number of public homes in the Far North fell from 807 in 2012 to a low of 677 in 2019. As of February this year the number had increased only slightly to 684.
