Tenant wins Lotto without even buying a ticket

COOK’S KITCHEN: Hola is a keen cook and loves her light, bright new kitchen and all its cupboard space.

Glenn Innes tenant Hola Koloamatangi describes living in her new Housing New Zealand home as the equivalent of winning the lottery.

“I won first division with this place. That’s how I feel – like I’ve won Lotto.”

The mother of two adult children, who has endured four redundancies and now works as a caregiver, had previously lived just a stone’s throw away from where she is now, in Sunnymead Road.

The old state house there had been home for Hola, her father and children for 17 years. But back in February she learned she would have to move, enabling the land where her house stood to be redeveloped. It was a time of anger and anxiety.

“I was panicked and I was angry at Housing New Zealand to be honest. I didn’t want to shift after 17 years. I was a bit nervous that I was going to be moved out of Glen Innes – I know the area so well and all my family are here.” Hola says seeing houses demolished and moved out of the area also made her worry. “I just thought ‘where are you going to put us’?”

But Hola says she placed her faith in her Housing New Zealand tenancy liaison officer, Jenni Loui, who assured her she’d find her a good home.

True to her word, several weeks later, Jenni invited the grandmother of three to take a look at a newly-built two-bedroom home she might like in Apirana Ave.

“I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, just from the outside,” Hola smiles. And the love affair continued when she saw the inside.

“It’s beautiful. It’s spacious, clean and has more cupboard space in the kitchen than the old place,” she says. “And I can feel how warm it is. My son is a builder and when he came into the house the first time he said ‘mum, it’s so warm’.”

The house is a dream Hola secretly harboured but never thought would come true.

“I saw all these new houses being built in the neighbourhood and I’d look at them and imagine where I’d put my things!” she says. In May, the keen cook - who often has her grandchildren to stay - realised her dream when she moved in to her new home and furnished it immaculately.

Now, with time to reflect, she says she can see her old home wasn’t the best place for her to be.

“When I look back at where I was before I realise it was time to move – I was too comfortable there. And the back and front yards at Sunnymead were getting too much for me. I like to be clean and tidy but sometimes I had to leave the lawns too long because I couldn’t pay for the mower man.”

It’s an issue the avid gardener, who moved from Tonga to New Zealand when she was 22, doesn’t face in her new home.

“The house is a much better layout and there’s just enough grass for me to look after. I even have a garage.”

The property is one of eight houses, a mixture of four private and four Housing New Zealand homes built side-by-side in partnership with Creating Communities Limited.

The development is an example of Housing New Zealand’s ‘blind tenure’ philosophy whereby it’s impossible to distinguish between private and social housing. And Hola says even her friends are in awe of her new home.

“They can’t believe it. They say ‘you’re so lucky!’” It’s a sentiment she agrees with fully.

“I can’t thank Housing New Zealand enough for doing things like this. I’ll really look after it.”

Creating warm and dry homes

Here at Creating Communities, we're working hard to build warm, dry and safe homes for future generations of New Zealanders.

How are we doing this?

We're taking Housing New Zealand's old, damp, fibrolite clad homes that have been plonked on timber piles in the middle of 800-900sqm sites, with no regard for to the street or the sun and replacing them with warm, comfortable and modern properties.

We are investing in upgrading the old 1940's underground infrastructure to bring them up to current standard. These upgrades also include devices to recharge groundwater systems and reduce peak stormwater flows into the local streams. 

Another question you might ask is whether or not the properties being removed from these sites could simply be refurbished on site. Don't old houses have have good bones?

Our answer would be, "No, this is not a suitable option for many reasons." A lot of the houses do have good bones, but to get to those good bones, you have to strip off the fibrolite cladding, get rid of the asbestos out of the vinyl and then there's the dreaded damp to be eliminated. Even if all of these complicated issues were dealt with, there is still the issue of the actual siting of the property on the land - it's lack of aspect to the road and the sun.

These homes are definitely poor housing stock in desperate need of removal.

The other thing to think about, whilst looking at the redevelopment as a whole is that we are also living in a city where the housing shortage is being talked about all the time.  Removing these single dwellings from their 900sqm sites and replacing them with multiple modern, comfortable homes makes sense on so many levels.

www.creatingcommunities.co.nz

Where great location meets smart design

Creating Communities is at the forefront of New Zealand’s largest urban regeneration project helping to address the ongoing issue of the shortage of housing supply in Auckland.

By making better use of local land and truly creating sustainable, mixed-tenure communities, they're providing more modern, healthy, warm and safe homes to people in need.

How do they do this? Creating Communities are taking Housing New Zealand's old and outdated properties, some are uninhabitable and many are on under-utilised sections and transforming them into warm, comfortable and modern Housing New Zealand properties.

They're creating a mix of Housing New Zealand homes, with the balance of properties built available for private sale, including a number of identical "affordable" homes.

The Creating Communities project is improving the quality of living for Glen Innes' people.

www.creatingcommunities.co.nz