Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities: A new approach to meeting key Government priorities

Kāinga Ora has two key roles: being a world-class public housing landlord and working in partnership to enable, facilitate and build urban development projects of all sizes.

When announcing the Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities Bill had been passed Minister of Housing, the Hon. Dr Megan Woods said “Kāinga Ora will be a world-class public landlord, providing good quality, warm, dry and healthy rental housing. Their attention will be on building up New Zealand’s stock of public housing, and maintaining and improving the quality of existing properties, with a strong focus on promoting the wellbeing of current and future generations.

The new operating principles reflect increased expectations on Kāinga Ora to be a fair and reasonable landlord. This includes prioritising tenants’ wellbeing and treating tenants with integrity and respect.

The legislation also removes the ability of future Governments to sell-off state homes and removes the requirement for state housing to return a dividend to the Crown. Kāinga Ora will instead place whānau and families at the centre of its work and have an essential role in ending homelessness and making houses more affordable.”

Read Minister Woods full statement.(external link)

For his part, Minister of Urban Development, Hon. Phil Twyford spoke of the efficiencies that will be achieved by bringing together the former entities of Housing New Zealand, HLC and KiwiBuild.

“Kāinga Ora is a new approach. It will end the duplication, splitting of key roles, fragmented decision-making and limited coordination that occurred over recent years because the Government’s comprehensive house building programmes was spread across multiple agencies. It will also recognise the importance of environmental, cultural and heritage values in urban development.”

Read Minister Twyford’s full statement.(external link)