Warmer, drier state homes for Auckland whānau

“The general maintenance spending is part of our focus on improving the quality of our homes for families”, says Regional Manager Taina Jones.

This Financial Year 18/19 investment has gone on such things as painting, fencing, roofing and driveway safety improvements across many of the 28,482 homes Kāinga Ora owns in the Auckland region.

“It’s great to see this money being spent on our homes in Auckland,” says Taina.

“These improvements will help keep our homes in good condition and provide a safe, warm environment for tenants and their whānau.’’

The $46.9 million investment includes more than $6.06 million on fencing improvements, about $24.1 million on painting, more than $8.7 million on roofing and over $800,000 on 461 driveway safety improvement projects.

The Driveway Safety programme began in 2013 and aims to reduce the risk of children being run over in the driveways of state homes. This is achieved by installing fencing, self-closing gates with child-resistant latches, speed restriction signs, speed humps and convex mirrors, where appropriate.

This programme has already seen improvements made to 461 Auckland properties and focuses on separating play areas from driveways and ensuring play areas are directly visible and accessible from main living areas.

Overall, each year Kāinga Ora spends about half a billion dollars on maintaining and improving its homes across New Zealand.

“That is a massive financial commitment and one we’re proud of,” says Taina.

As well as driveway safety, fencing, painting and roofing programmes, this yearly maintenance amount includes other planned programmes, keeping properties to standard between tenancies, and other exterior and interior maintenance.