The housing agency has confirmed it has filed consent applications with the Dunedin City Council for eight two-storey complexes in High St, Mosgiel.
It comes as the city faces housing supply issues; there were 428 people on the housing waiting list in Dunedin as of December, and about 100 transitional housing places available.
But resident Tony Sidon said he was worried about the effect new Kainga Ora tenants would have on his home, which is located beside the site of the new developments.
"It’s my home and I don’t want to leave, but I’ve heard nothing but bad news about the sort of tenants who live in those houses, and there are going to be so many of them.
"They’re building too many of these properties at once."
He was concerned his neighbourhood would be "devalued" as a result of Kainga Ora "marching in" to the region, he said.
Kainga Ora regional director Kerrie Young said it would support its customers.
"Our whole way of working is set up to help make sure our customers have the right home and support to live well in their homes and communities.
"We work hard to support customers to live well in their homes by matching them to suitable homes, providing support to help them settle in and connecting customers to local support services, if that is what they want and need."
It was important to note about 185,000 people lived in Kāinga Ora homes around the country and most of them were good neighbours, who helped make their communities great places to live, she said.
"When problems do occur, we take them seriously and do everything we can as a landlord to resolve them. We don’t expect anyone to put up with awful situations and we work hard to address issues when they arise, including using the tools available to us as a landlord under the Residential Tenancies Act where needed."
Kainga Ora had a large build programme under way to deliver more public housing in Dunedin and Mosgiel over the next few years to address the growing demand for public housing in the area, Ms Young said.
"Many of our homes in Mosgiel are older and nearing the end of their economic life, so we are working hard to renew our housing stock and make more homes available to those in need.
"One of the ways we are doing this is by redeveloping some of our properties by replacing older homes on larger sections with more new warm and dry homes that better meet the needs of our customers’ modern lifestyles."
At 60 and 60a High St, the redevelopment of the site would result in two existing homes being replaced with four new accessible one-storey, two-bedroom homes, Ms Young said.
These homes were under construction and Kainga Ora expected to deliver these to the Mosgiel community in the second half of this year.
At 61-63 High St and 19 Doon St, Kainga Ora was proposing to replace three existing homes with eight new two-storey homes.
These were a mix of two-bedroom duplex and three and four-bedroom standalone homes.
"In December last year we submitted consent applications for this project and our plans are subject to the standard consenting process. Once this is complete and our plans are finalised, we will be able to confirm when we expect this project to get under way."
