Wellington City Council to sell 90s eco-house after it sits empty for 20 months

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

An eco-home built by Wellington city in the 90s will be sold after sitting empty for more than a year.

Its paint is chipping and there's a thick layer of dust – but a Newtown home was once considered a cutting edge eco-house.

Built in the 1990s as a celebrated display of low-cost, environmentally friendly building at the time, the Wellington home featured insulated concrete blocks, double-glazed windows, solar-heated water and a heat pump.

Now Wellington City Council is selling the show home it built for $160,000 in 1995, attracting a 1000-strong crowd to its opening.

For years the three-bedroom home at 9 Regent St, Newtown, served as an attraction for school groups, workshops and demonstrations, before becoming social housing.

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The Regent St home, which was built in June 1995, has been uninhabited since April 2017. Visible in the home is some damage to walls, and a layer of white dust costing surfaces of the house.

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But the house has been left empty since April 2017, with visibly paint-chipped walls and a hardened layer of dust coating kitchen benches and floors.

The empty three-bedroom home has frustrated the Newtown community and its designers, unsure why it wasn't used to house a family.

Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the decision to sell the house was made late in 2018, and it would be on the market in the next few months.

An apartment behind the eco-home on Regent St that Wellington City Council intends to put up for sale.

'As part of this process we are required to offer any such property back to previous owners and there is a set time scale in which they are allowed to respond.'

A number of the bespoke components in the house, particularly the solar heating system, had reached the end of their life, he said.

A plaque on a wall running alongside the house.

'The costs to carry out this work meant it would not have been prudent to carry it out, even to let it in the short term while we were going through the divestment process.'

It was also difficult to let to families, he said, as many parents were uncomfortable about having a child sleep in a separate granny-flat at the rear of the house.

The house is valued at $830,000 and proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in the social housing programme.

Martin Hanley, designer of the home and vice president of the Newtown Residents' Association, was disappointed it had been left in a state of disrepair.

He had contacted the council about suitable groups to live in the house - including a family of artists - in the past year.

'As neighbours we were puzzled why it was empty. We could never find out,' Hanley said.

Modern homes were starting to catch up with the eco-house's design , he said.

'In some places we completely over insulated for the codes of the day, but I think the codes are getting closer to that level now, which is interesting.

'It works really well for a family just because of a number of potential sleeping spaces … and then there's the granny-flat which is a great little student apartment. And they're going to get low power bills.'

Councillor Brian Dawson, who holds the social housing portfolio, said the house was not suitable for social housing and the money could be better used elsewhere.

'We've been busy in the past two years providing a hell of a lot more housing for people that need it, than worrying about one little house in Newtown.'