Affordable housing scheme under way

Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust's six Secure Home houses are being built at Cherwell Lane, Shotover Country. Photo: Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trusts

Queenstown Community Housing Trust is building two 2-bedroom and four 3-bedroom homes at Shotover Country as part of its pilot scheme, Secure Home.

Trust executive officer Julie Scott said it was the first of its kind in New Zealand, where people purchase the properties through a 99-year land lease arrangement and the trust retained ownership of the land in perpetuity.

The six lots in Shotover Country's Cherwell Lane were transferred to the trust by the developers as part of Queenstown Lakes District Council's Special Housing Area process.

''The essence of the shared home programme means a household will be able to purchase the home at around the cost to build it, excluding the land cost.

''They will then pay a very low ground rent on the land, which will only ever increase annually and in line with inflation.''

In the pilot, low ground rent will be set at 1.5% of land value.

''A standard lease would expect a 4% to 5% return so we're very happy to be able to do this at 1.5%. For example, a $300,000 section would return a ground rent of $4500 per annum, or $86.50 per week,'' Ms Scott said.

Another aspect of the programme is a restricted resale clause, whereby the property can only ever be sold back to the trust at the original purchase price, plus consumer price index for the years the owners have been in the house.

This would ensure the property remained affordable for future home owners, she said.

More than 500 households are on the trust's waiting list and Ms Scott had no concerns there would be a good uptake on the new programme.

''When your options are either keep paying excessive rents, or buy your own home under a permanently affordable assisted-ownership model, it becomes a pretty simple choice.''

Civil works were completed earlier this month, and the houses are at various stages of construction.

Breen Construction is building the homes, and they are expected to be complete by early 2019.

Secure Home was one of several actions developed by the Mayoral Housing Affordability Taskforce.

Task force chairman and Queenstown Lakes district councillor John MacDonald said he was pleased with the progress.

''This is one of the key recommendations to come out of the task force report, and council is behind the trust 100%.''