1 Mar 2018

Wellington council spends up on housing

8:30 am on 1 March 2018

Wellington City Council is planning to spend nearly $28 million on getting more homes built in the capital.

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Photo: supplied

The council has earmarked the money in its draft 10-year plan, which includes $22m of capital and $5.7m of operational funding to deliver the council's housing strategy.

Councillor and housing portfolio leader Brian Dawson said that compared to the hundreds of millions going to transport and resilience over the next 10 years, it was not a huge figure.

But the council wouldn't be the one building houses.

"What we're doing is working in partnership with government through the KiwiBuild programme and with private developers and others to facilitate the delivery of housing," he said.

"And that money basically allows us to do some of the work that needs to be done to allow that to happen."

The council was working with owners of office buildings to make it easier for them to convert them into apartments by making it easier to get consent, and was guaranteeing rent if the apartment met council requirements.

There were also areas around town that would be good for developing housing, but they had problems such as multiple titles.

Some were in areas where the district plan made it hard to develop, so special housing areas might need to be created.

The council had already announced it was planning to spend $280m on resilience in the city, and $230m on transport in the next 10 years, as part of the draft plan.

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