Kāinga Ora housing complex in Flagstaff, Hamilton could face more delays

An artist's impression of the planned housing development on Endeavour Ave in Flagstaff, Hamilton. Photo / Kāinga Ora

Construction of a large state housing development in Hamilton has already been delayed by two years and the government agency behind it can't promise it will be ready to welcome residents in 2024.

The controversial Flagstaff housing development is one of a number of Kāinga Ora's housing developments around the country facing significant delays due to a range of issues including Covid-19 restrictions, global labour and materials constraints, and bad weather.

The Endeavour Ave build was first announced in 2020 and since then the completion date has been pushed back several times with construction now expected to begin in 2023 and residents expected to move into their new homes in 2024.

At the time of the initial announcement of its plans to build a new community beside the Flagstaff shops, Kāinga Ora said work would begin in 2021.

However a huge outpouring of community resistance to the proposal - particularly over plans to have three-storey high apartment blocks and the large number of houses being squeezed in - forced the housing agency to alter its plans, pushing the start date out again to 2022.

The final development will now comprise 19 two-bedroom, 32 three-bedroom, eight four-bedroom homes and one five-bedroom house, which are all two-storey. It is a mix of public and privately-owned market housing.

A letter sent from Kāinga Ora to the site's closest neighbours last week confirmed while ground investigations would be carried out this week, the actual construction won't start until 2023. The development is now not due to be completed until 2024.

Kāinga Ora regional director Mark Rawson said the timeframes had been "pushed out a little" due to people on different professional services teams for the development falling ill with Covid-19.

He also couldn't rule out the development being delayed again in the future due to challenges with getting supplies. With such a large work programme unforeseen delays to project timelines were "inevitable", he said.

"Like any development at the moment, with ongoing Covid-19 and supply chain challenges it is possible these timeframes could change again, and we will continue to keep the community updated, as we have done throughout."

Kāinga Ora was still committed to delivering new warm dry homes in the city and there were currently about 560 public homes in Hamilton being investigated, planned or under contract or construction, he said.

Some of the new houses were replacing older homes and this could be done more quickly than a larger scale development.

Nationally, Kāinga Ora is building almost 3000 public and supported homes and was overall delivering 80 per cent more homes than it had four years ago.

The Endeavour Ave development is not the only housing development being impacted and there has been a knock-on effect to Kāinga Ora housing delivery timeframes around the country. Kāinga Ora couldn't provide the details of all the other developments being impacted prior to deadline.