Rekindling communities

This Issue This is a part of the Changes ahead feature

By - , Build 168

A new take on traditional Maori accommodation presents the opportunity to ease urban housing pressure and help rebuild entire communities.

IN THE SHADOW of soaring house prices and record urban homelessness, many older and low-income New Zealanders are being forced to rethink their attitudes toward home ownership.

A solution to help bridge the widening gap between home affordability and the desire for home ownership is receiving a lot of attention from iwi and Māori housing groups.

Ancestral connection to the land

In a modern sense, a papakāinga refers to a housing community where the residents have an ancestral connection to the land. Its precise meaning changes depending on context, but a papakāinga development usually consists of three or more houses grouped together on Māori land, sometimes close to a marae.

‘The concept runs deeper than that though,’ says Wayne Knox, Lead Advisor – Policy and Engagement with Te Matapihi, a trust established to advocate for a range of Māori housing interests.

‘The words “papa kāinga” loosely translate to “home land”, but if you look at “kā” more closely, it refers to the home fire. In the Māori world view, this symbolically represents the sustaining of our connection with the land and our right to reside there.’

Growth in papakainga housing

A large proportion of Māori land is located in very remote rural areas. Over the last century, this has led to a depopulation of traditional papakāinga as local communities diminish and families gravitate towards the cities in search of employment.

‘However, we’ve recently seen a clear reversal in this trend. People want to return to their ancestral homes, to their papakāinga. In the last 5 years, there’ve been a significant number of new, high-quality papakāinga spring up,’ says Wayne.

Many papakāinga developments are state of the art, using the latest technologies, sustainable materials and construction practices. The build itself is also often an opportunity for employment and to develop skills within the Māori community.

Building communities

‘I was at a recent papakāinga opening at Kōkōhīnau Marae in the Bay of Plenty, where they established five new houses, partly as a social response to the 2017 Edgecumbe floods. The housing company doing the construction work took on the young people from the marae, trained them up and offered them ongoing employment after the project was complete,’ he says.

‘That’s a great outcome. We’ve certainly learned that good planning and designing a community as a whole is more conducive to long-term positive economic and cultural outcomes for the community.’

Financing is main hurdle

Contemporary papakāinga projects can apply for support from organisations like the Ministry of Māori Development – Te Puni Kōkiri and the Māori Housing Unit. Wayne says such support makes a tremendous difference, but there are still significant challenges.

‘One small area of Māori land can be collectively owned by hundreds of people,’ he says. ‘However, the land is inalienable and must remain in collective ownership, so anyone who successfully applies to live within a papakāinga has the right to occupy the housing but does not necessarily own the land outright.’

This leads to the main issue limiting papakāinga – financing.

‘When you borrow money to buy a house, the bank wants to secure the mortgage against something you own, typically the land. That’s not possible with papakāinga because the land is inalienable, so unless the occupant has other equity, they find it very hard to get a loan,’ he says. ‘The Kāinga Whenua Loan Scheme, which is administered by KiwiBank and Housing New Zealand, was specifically designed for papakāinga housing, but in practice, it is still very hard to access.’

New planning provisions and skills help

Nevertheless, some things are easier.

‘We’ve seen many local authorities add planning provisions to enable papakāinga developments. The Auckland Unitary plan has very strong provisions. The various Waikato district councils have attempted to develop a consistent set of provisions. And in Whangārei, they have offset the developer contributions for papakāinga,’ he says.

‘We’ve also seen new skills emerge in the building industry, and there are now several very competent project managers out there who specialise in papakāinga. Such things are critical to the success of a project.’

Applying papakainga to urban areas

Despite the resurgence of papakāinga, Wayne believes the future of Māori housing lies in greater flexibility.

‘Papakāinga is a good solution, but it’s not always the best option for whānau in cities,’ he says. ‘The challenge now is to apply the principles of papakāinga to an urban context and provide people with the confidence to approach other forms of housing in a more Māori way.’

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