Te Āti Awa are ensuring their uri in Wellington will remain in the region by providing housing opportunities at a newly developed site in Wainuiomata with space for up to 82 new homes.
Te Āti Awa trust member Ihakara Puketapu says, "The aspirations of our uri was that we get land back from the Crown that was taken from us and transition it into housing. So, this was one of those sites that was a perfect site for us to build our homes."
Stage one of the build is designing an infrastructure that will allow Te Āti Awa to provide options for its people to purchase homes.
The iwi are looking at providing a range of housing options, its estimated that the build for the new homes will take at least two years to complete.
Puketapu says the iwi are considering, "a mixture of kaumātua housing, rental housing, affordable housing and market priced housing."
"So, its a whole mixture of different types of houses for our whānau," he says, "a mixed community if you want to say."
He says, "Movement is generating around this and we are really positive about what that can do. What we can do for the future of our uri , for the future of our tamariki and this is for them."
Wellington Mayor Justin Lester is full of praise for the contribution Te Āti Awa are making to the community.
"So, I love what Te Āti Awa is doing because there are three essentially public good institutions that can help with housing support and they do it just for public benefit. That's central government, there's local government, there's also iwi," he says.