RCL’s asked Queenstown council to construct the two-storey duplexes — each containing two bedrooms and a single garage — at Drysdale Rd — to then be leased by the housing trust to some of the 1350 residents on its waitlist.
Housing trust boss Julie Scott says RCL’s subject to the Jack’s Point Stakeholder Deed, signed in 2003.
While Jack’s Point Ltd opted to provide the trust with land, enabling the development at Lake Hayes Estate’s Nairn Square, RCL, which she says has been "brilliant to work with", has elected to provide discounted rental properties.
"They will provide us around 85 rental properties at a discounted price to market, then we’ll pass on that discount to households.
"We got five four-bedders last year, this year they’ve built 19 two-bedders and one three-bedder — we’ve just taken on the management of them.
"We’re essentially rental property managers for them."
Scott says because they’re leased by the trust, the Hanley’s Farm properties either go into the affordable rental pool, or the trust’s rent-to-buy programme — and they’ve been "really, really gratefully received by our waiting list".
"Most people are paying around 80% of market rents, so a lot of people we’re putting in to these, their rent’s basically halving."
Fresh from completing the first homes at Arrowtown’s Tewa Banks development — on completion there’ll be 68 homes, a mix of affordable rentals, rent-to-buy, secure homes and public housing — Scott says they’ve also just completed two homes at Mt Cardrona Station and households will move in to four new homes at Hikuwai, near Wānaka’s Northlake.
Four homes have been started in Longview, Hawea, where another 16 are planned for construction next year, the trust’s in the design stage of a 1200 square metre section at Wānaka’s Alpine Meadows, and in the design phase of Queenstown council’s pensioner cottages in McDougal St, Wānaka.
On this side of the hill, the trust’s designing at least nine homes for Arthurs Point’s Bullenrise and is in the early stages of planning for a 60-lot development at Park Ridge — between Kelvin Heights and Hanley’s Farm — though titles for that development aren’t expected till about 2027.
"There is some medium density, as I understand it, to be proposed there, so there may be some opportunity, as the development progresses, to negotiate with them on taking some medium density and doing a bit more there, but 60 will be the minimum."
