Red Hill: A social housing development that enhances quality of life for Pacific people

Friday 19 April 2024 was one of those quietly auspicious days when something that had been unthinkable in social housing was finally released into the world. The opening of Penina Trust 's latest social housing development in Red Hill, Papakura,, which we were privileged to attend.? This one is close to our heart as it is the very first Pacific multi-generational housing development and a project that we helped bring to life.

The aim was to create a place that really considered the needs of multi-generational Pacific families in both the design of the homes and surrounding spaces to create a sense of community pride and belonging.? From the Fale that provides shade and a common outdoor area for community gatherings, the extra off-street parking, spaces for kids to safely play outside, to a place to plant vegetables.? These houses feel like homes, and not the usual social housing.? The benefit of this kind of development, albeit with a higher price tag than the average development, ?goes beyond offering a roof over a head.? Instead, the return on investment takes a longer-term view and emphasises the interconnectivity of keeping families together in a life enhancing environment that supports a myriad of indirect benefits like the improved health, social, and educational outcomes which in the long-term reduce the drain on the public purse. We can’t wait to hear the stories from the families that get to call one of these five homes their own.

The completion of this project marks a very special milestone for us as we had a hand in enabling this project to come to life from the very beginning. As consultants, we work in the background to fill capacity and capability gaps in order to bring dream projects like this to life, and we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this one. So even though ours was an enabling and supporting role, projects like these are precious to us. Rare gems that come along only occasionally, but enable us to really live out the purpose of everything we do – working with good people doing good things.? Penina will always occupy a very special place in our hearts as they picked us to help them make this truly singular, hugely impactful, and revolutionary project come to life. For that we will be forever grateful. ?Their vision and purpose remains clear and unwavering. They are truly a leader in advancing Pacific mental health and social housing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The project was born out the vision of Penina’s remarkable CEO Roine Lealaiauloto . We remember the day she gave us the address at Red Hill and while we were scoping the site with her she said simply “I think we should buy this piece of land and put a multi-generational development on it”.? ?And so it came to be. She had the vision, and then placed the next steps in our hands. It felt like a huge mountain to climb and we were acutely aware of the faith she had placed in us and that it was our responsibility to deliver her vision. ?We worked for many months with her team on the purchase of the land, and then alongside Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga - Ministry of Housing and Urban Development NZ to use whatever we could do to collectively drive a positive outcome for the financing of this very different type of social housing build. Sometimes it felt like we were reinventing the wheel, but everyone involved was wholly invested in the vision.

In preparing the design brief to hold true to Penina’s vision of this entirely Pacific project, we found a Pacific architect to lead the project, and it was our role to hold everyone steadfast to that vision. Doing that required that we push back, sometimes quite hard, because there were many times it would have been easier to compromise and choose the cheaper and more well-travelled path.? We prioritised the social impact potential and the needs of Pacific families over everything else.? We went way beyond what traditional approaches could tolerate and stretched every approach, rationale and acceptable pathway to its limit in order to bring the build to life. ?This sometimes included pushing people to extend themselves and their minds. ?We supported thinking around how we might work together with Ministry for Pacific Peoples to have their input and financial support, and potentially shift the dial from a systems perspective, which became a reality.?

We supported building relationships with local iwi and were privileged to expand our own mindsets by undertaking an important cultural course which was designed to emphasise the necessity of protecting and adapting work when undertaking excavation on important sites in Auckland to preserve Māori history. We were so grateful to Ngāti Tamaoho for this learning ?which led us to make sure that a space on the site where an original Totara tree once stood, (but had to be removed) was blessed as it left the land and then to welcome it's return as an amazing carving to honour our tangata whenua which now has a permanent home at this new site surrounded by Pacific planting.

This project was all about how the vision often lives in the detail and it was in those small moments our tenacity and resilience to hold fast to the vision was tested. ?We hope that the families who will make this small but hard won community their home will enjoy all of the small things that were integral in the dreaming, negotiating, and finally the making of this place.

And as with all things, our time on the build had its season. ?Our involvement gradually lessened over time and as the builds were underway and the baton was taken up by many others that came after to fight different battles and keep holding the torch of belief.

And now here we are… It’s done and we know that all of us who played a part, large and small have given a piece of ourselves to the families who will make their homes here. This will be a space of memories wrapped up in the beauty and magic of community, binding all of us together as if the whenua itself has woven a small part of all our hearts into the fabric of this very special place.

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