Victory homes imminent, plans for 18 more
Nelson Tasman Housing Trust director Carrie Mozena at their Totara St site in Victory, where construction is about to start on six new family homes. Photo: Kate Russell.
Construction is about to start on six new family homes in Victory for the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust, and its director says the houses cannot come soon enough as the cost of living crisis bites.
Carrie Mozena says their waiting list has “significantly” grown in the last year.
“We had 85 on the waiting list this time last year, now we have well over 100.”
The trust already has 55 affordable rental homes in Nelson Tasman, with another 24 in either the construction or planning phase – including the homes in Victory.
The two-storey houses will back onto Victory Primary School and will include two 2-bedroom homes, three 3-bedroom homes, and one 4-bedroom home.
Work on the services to connect water to the properties began last week. Building consent has just been approved and construction is set to start this week.
“It has been a long time coming. We want to get them finished as soon as practically possible; we are expecting completion by October this year,” Carrie says.
The project has a price tag of $4.3 million (including land costs) and applications for the home are now open. Carrie says they have already received several expressions of interest, with a “focus on families in need”.
The sites at 6 and 8 Totara St once homed two older dwellings that the trust purchased from Nelson City Council in August 2022. The council bought the sites in the 1990s for the potential relocation of Victory Kindergarten if the Southern Link progressed.
Carrie says anything that could be reused from the old homes was removed from the site before they “munched up” both dwellings.
“Then they passed magnets over it all to remove the metal - the whole process minimised what went to landfill.”
She says the trust did look at relocating the homes, but they were “too far past their use-by date”.
Two other sites the trust has acquired are now at the resource consent stage.
One is at 76 Dodson Valley Rd in Atawhai which is set to be transformed into 10 new homes by early/mid-2025 for $7.8 million.
“We purchased the site a few years ago, but it has been a long project to remediate the land,” Carrie says. “There was a derelict house on the site and an area with buried asbestos material, it was a very carefully council-monitored process.”
Eight two-bedroom homes are also at the planning stage in Nelson South. The adjourning sites at 116 Waimea Rd and 163 Kawai St South have a combined area of 1840 sqm.
Carrie says the biggest delay for their projects is getting them through the consenting phase.
“Council consenting teams have been short-staffed - that has gradually improved. They are working hard to address the backlog.”
She says there is no quick solution to the housing crisis, and their projects can take up to three years from start to finish.
“We just have to be patient and persistent.”