Text: Oraruwharo Papakāinga - Building the Dream
Ivan Hauraki - Oraruwharo Ahu Whenua Trust Chair
We wanted housing. Okay, now there's 180 people in our whānau that could do with housing. So we had to break it down. So we had to set up a kaupapa on how we could manage that. So we were more concerned about our old people living in cities. You know, they live in, the ones that come back here living in Auckland, Whangārei, Tauranga, Whakatāne, you know, all over the place.
And the idea and you know, unfortunately for Māori homeownership just got hard and for a lot of other reasons, you know people are moving through the systems and getting to 60 or 65 without homes living in rental accommodation, you know, which was spiraling up and the stressors that go with that and not knowing if the landlord's going to come along and say the house is sold and you've got to move on.
So, you know, the idea for me was to get our old people out of that situation into a better environment. And for me, wellbeing is probably the biggest part of everything. And to make sure that they were in a place like this where they might be paying rent, it's a very small amount of rent, but in actual fact they all own these houses, they own the whenua, they’re all beneficiaries to this place.
And it's just wanting to get them away from those stressful things and back into here, which we've achieved, which we've achieved. At the same time, we're also looking forward, looking ahead to try and get our younger generations to be able to build on this whenua as well. So we do have another stage coming up that we're going to have younger, more professional people.
You know, there's a few boxes they need to tick, but at the same time, they just, you know, they've got to be able to handle a mortgage and all that normal things, you know, if you take the whenua out of any house cost you're almost taking a third of the cost away. And then if you build like this, it becomes affordable and we can help them to achieve that.
Text: Feasibility and Infrastructure
We went through a feasibility study for funding first, so I got that funding. So we were able to put everything together. And then when it come to the normal process would have been infrastructure. And then beyond that, it's the capital build. He helped me set up my application for feasibility and at the same time it was a lot of the information and that was what we needed for resource consent.
So we put those two together and we got an application, all the same information and a resource consent out of that. And that was because Steve had the knowledge and on how to go about doing that. You don't want the place breaking down in five or six, seven years time. You know, we spent a massive amount of money on our infrastructure and our infrastructure was also futureproofed.
So what I build up there and we can fit right into the infrastructure that's already here. So plan it properly if you intend to extend onto it, which we know we were going to do. So we made sure we had the right sized pipes that could cope with the wastewater coming from up top into our wastewater treatment plant. Down the back.
The stormwater is the same. We had caps of up there that we can just open up and fit in the stormwater again as we go. So the power is running past there we got plinths that the houses hook into, so all the infrastructure for our future is completed.
Text: The Tripartite Agreement
They are the guarantors. So you go to kiwibank. Okay. You submit your application or whatever, and then you've got to go to or it's a triangle between kiwibank, Kāinga Ora because at the end of the day Kiwibank don't look to you for a guarantor. They looking at Kāinga Ora, they become the guarantors.
Text: The Build
In a normal business world. Time and money is the two things that matter. You waste time, you waste money, you save time, you save money.
So I said, Oh, well, okay, what do I want to do here? I want to get this built and outta here if it falls for me. So how was I going to do that? That's when I said, okay, we're going to use a design and build. First of all, the designs are these just go through a book, got 36 Plans in there, pick out what you want. I probably had a look at three other design and builds before I decided on advance.
They had two advantages. I like the product and staff. I think it was better than anything else I saw. Their back up service and what they were telling me and from what I knew was, you know, top line. And they were local.
Text: Growing the whenua
We, right at the start allocated two hectares to housing. So it was probably about two hectares in native bush and what have you. And we think we can utilise maybe four hectares of that and we have a plan or program that's going to start building an avocado orchard through there in those four hectares and with that is just going to provide a sustainable financial future for this place and then employment as well. But the idea is that somewhere in the future, not right now, but somewhere in the future that we'll bring our old people back here and they'll be able to live here free.
We have two documents that will apply to here. One is the trust deed through the courts and the other is our governance document. And it just gives simple rules and the thought behind it is that if there's ever a disagreement or an argument or something comes up in ten years time, two people don't have to stand there and argue about it.
You just go back to these documents and the answers there somewhere and just apply that to what you're doing. Yeah, so it's an important part of living in harmony, I'll say, you know, and to the standard that the trustees want, you know. So I mean, it's a beautiful place. You need it to be looked after and we need our mokopuna in 25 years time to be able to see the same thing.
Yeah. And this is one of the things that I talk about and when we lift the standards of papakāinga.