Iwi choose liquor trust to manage Tauranga state houses

Standing: Pia Callahan, Helen Biel, Victoria Kingi, Allan Pollard, Robert Urwin, Kimiora Rawiri and Te Pio Kawe. Seated: Colin Reeder and Raymond Southey. Photo / Supplied

An iwi consortium bidding to buy Tauranga's state houses has chosen a Masterton liquor trust to manage the houses if it wins the tender.

The Masterton-based Trust House group bought all 541 state houses in the Wairarapa and Tararua districts for $10.5 million in a 1999 deal that current chief executive Allan Pollard has described as a discount of "probably 50 per cent" off market value.

The Tauranga consortium comprising Ngati Ranginui, Tapuika and Nga Potiki is one of two leading contenders to buy the 1257 state houses in Tauranga and Te Puke valued at $321 million.

The three iwi chose Trust House as its management partner because the biggest existing Maori provider in Tauranga had only 35 houses, spokeswoman Victoria Kingi said.

"Frankly there is no Maori provider that is operating at a scale that could manage 1200 tenancies in one transaction, which is what the Government requires," she said.

"We are taking on tenants who are not solely Maori, and we will be operating at a scale that requires a higher level of quality and accountability that a provider that manages 35 houses would be operating in."

She met Mr Pollard at a housing luncheon and took a team from Tauranga to see Trust House's operation, including meetings with its tenants and a community house serving its tenants in Masterton, she said.

"The feedback we had was really positive," she said.

The agreement signed today had no fixed term, she said.

"The idea is to build our capability and at some point they exit," she said.

But it was "too early to say" how soon that would be.

The other known bidder for the Tauranga houses is IHC subsidiary Accessible Properties, which already has about 1000 houses nationally and is chaired by Tauranga property developer Paul Adams.

The Treasury is due to call for formal expressions of interest this month for the houses in Tauranga and another 370 in Invercargill.

A shortlist of bidders is due to be named in February with final bids due by April and a preferred bidder due to be notified in May.