New houses for Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ōhakea personnel are being built in Bulls, with additional housing expected in the following years. Photo / NZME
New houses for Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ōhakea personnel are being built in Bulls, with additional housing expected in the following years. Photo / NZME
The construction of five homes in Bulls for Base Ōhakea personnel is under way as part of the Government’s largest Defence housing project in decades.
Associate Defence Minister and Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk announced last month construction had started on various Defence housing projects.
These include Burnham MilitaryCamp in Canterbury, Auckland’s Bayswater and Linton Military Camp in Palmerston North, as well as the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) base at Ōhakea.
The aim is to deliver modern homes for military families and drive job growth in regional communities.
Penk said Defence Force members deserved warm, modern homes to return to when they were off duty because of their dedication to protect New Zealand.
“Too many homes across New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) camps and bases no longer meet the standards we expect for our servicemen and women,” Penk said.
He said some existing homes dated to the 1930s and were poorly laid out and insulated after decades of under-investment.
Ōhakea base commander and group captain Peter Gibson saidbeing able to provide support to military families was critical to enable personnel to deploy and operate away from home.
“Housing is a key part of that support system and, although we are fortunate at Ōhakea to have a good quantity of housing available, much of it is old and doesn’t meet the needs of our aviators,” Gibson said.
“Having five new homes built in our Bulls Defence Housing area is fantastic news – they will be warm and dry and will better suit the lifestyles of some of our team here at Ōhakea.
“These are the first new houses to have been built for our people at Ōhakea for many years and we are very excited to be part of the wider NZDF Homes for Families programme. I know our families will be eager to move in when they are completed next year.”
Penk said the recent investment was the most ambitious Defence housing initiative since the 1980s.
“These new builds will include modern, two and three-bedroom homes, replacing outdated 1940s and 50s-era housing that no longer meet the needs of today’s military families or supports their wellbeing,” he said.
The Government remained committed to delivering 50 new homes for Waiōuru Military Camp and would “announce further details about the project this year”, Penk said.
Nearly $75m was set aside for the new houses at Waiōuru Military Training Camp in Budget 2023. Photo / NZME
In Budget 2023, the majority of $75 million was set aside for the new houses at Waiōuru.
The Chronicle this week asked NZDF how confident it was Waiōuru’s housing construction would progress this year.
Defence estate and infrastructure housing programme manager Julian Graham reiterated Penk’s statement that “details about new homes at Waiōuru Military Camp will be announced later this year”.
The Defence Force is preparing to go to market around the end of this year for additional new housing at Linton, Ōhakea, Burnham and Trentham Military Camp.
“This is just the beginning,” Penk said.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
