What the new homes on the corner of Malfroy Rd and Ranolf St will look like.
What the new homes on the corner of Malfroy Rd and Ranolf St will look like.
Kāinga Ora’s plans to build two three-storey blocks of 24 one- and two-bedroom apartments on the Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd corner have been scrapped.
Instead, the government agency will build 13 two-bedroom homes on the site.
There will be four two-storey, double-bedroom duplex homes and nine double-bedroom, two-storey flats.There will be 13 off-street car parks.
The old plans for 24 apartments on the corner of Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd.
A Kāinga Ora spokeswoman said resource consent was lodged late last month. Once approved, work would start in October, with the aim of finishing by April next year.
The change is part of Kāinga Ora’s axing of hundreds of social housing projects because they “no longer represent value for money”. The project was to have been Rotorua’s first three-storey housing complex.
The Kāinga Ora site on the corner of Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd.
Kāinga Ora’s review means there are seven developments totalling 47 homes that are not going ahead in Rotorua.
Three properties (on Roger St, Corlin Place and Milton Grove) have older homes still on-site and remain tenanted, and two properties (on Thomas Cres and Middleton Rd) will have the homes divested. A final decision was still being made on what to do with the Garnet Place property.
There are still six developments planned for the 2026 and 2027 financial years that will go ahead, which will result in 39 homes being built.
They include the 13 on Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd, and another 14 at 65 and 65A Clayton Rd. This development will result in two-, three- and four-bedroom houses being built.
The Kāinga Ora spokeswoman told the Rotorua Daily Post site preparation had started and the homes should be finished by March next year.
Other developments still going ahead include three homes on Turner Drive, three on Kea St, three on Mount View Drive and three on Sequoia Cres.
Kāinga Ora Waikato and Bay of Plenty regional director Mark Rawson said the organisation wouldbuild additional social housing at the Government’s direction.
“The number of new houses planned for delivery in Rotorua is in line with that direction.”
What the now-scrapped three-storey Kāinga Ora apartments on the corner of Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd would have looked like.
The cuts are part of a major “reset” the agency is undertaking after concerns emerged it had lost focus on its core role as a social housing landlord and veered too far into property development.
This followed a review former Prime Minister Sir Bill English led that found the agency’s debt had jumped from $2.7 billion in 2018 to $12.3b by June 2023, and was set to increase to $23b by 2028.
Kāinga Ora assessed 466 social housing projects nationally. It scrapped 212, which came to 3479 homes.
Work, including scoping and planning, had already gone into those projects, and cancelling them meant it would lose about $180m.
The Kāinga Ora apartments on the corner of Ranolf St and Malfroy Rd that have already been built. Photo / Kelly Makiha
The Rotorua Daily Post revealed earlier this year that the 12 one-bedroom units cost more than $630,000 each to build, not including the cost to buy the land.
Kāinga Ora said at the time that the $7.6m expense was not something that would have been repeated or approved under the new Government.
Other one-bedroom units completed across the country were nearly half the cost, between $325,000 and $520,000 each.
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.
