Wellington council flats to be demolished, more than 140 residents will need new homes

Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Debbie McGill has lived in the Granville Flats for 29 years – almost half of her life. Not for much longer. “They were going to upgrade it, and we could come back. And, now, it’s gone. I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

An infamous block of Wellington City Council flats will be torn down, and new homes found for the 144 residents living there.

The Granville Flats have stood since the 1960s. Now, the council has agreed to “dismantle and remove” them by May 2024. Afterwards, the site will be returned to mana whenua, from whom the council lease the land.

If you ask tenants, the buildings have long shown their age. A former resident last year likened entering her home to “walking into a freezer”, while others have bemoaned the poor condition of the flats and blamed the council’s stalled upgrades programme.

Debbie McGill has lived in one of those flats since 1993. She doesn’t disagree with descriptions like “rundown” or “cold”. Yet, to her, another word feels more apt: “home”.

“It’s been my home for nearly 30 years – more than half of my life. I’m going to grieve for it terribly.”

Tenants at Granville Flats have previously bemoaned cold conditions at the apartments, which were built in the 1960s.

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McGill described the shock when she received a letter with the news from the council on Wednesday that she has to move out by December next year.

“They were going to upgrade it, and we could come back. They kept talking about it, and talking about it. And, now, it’s gone. I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

Debbie McGill – and 143 other tenants – will be re-housed by December next year.

The council is the biggest provider of low-cost housing in Wellington, with a portfolio of 1600 homes, housing 3500 tenants.

City Housing, which manages those homes, said it was moving quickly to reassure displaced tenants. Manager Angelique Jackson said they all would find new homes, “the majority through turnover” within the council’s existing portfolio.

Everyone would be relocated by the end of next year, she said – and the council would cover “all moving costs”.

As other council-owned flats came vacant, suitable Granville tenants would move in. Jackson was confident this strategy was fit for purpose – using, as a baseline, the past 12 months during which 201 tenancies had ended.

Long-term tenant Debbie McGill is sad not only that her home will go, but also a community which had shaped around it.

However, the council couldn’t guarantee tenants would be re-housed with their neighbours.

“We would love to keep members of the community together wherever we can,” Jackson said. “This may not be possible due to where units become available.”

For McGill, this was the hardest part – not only were the buildings being dismantled, but a community which had shaped around them.

She still hoped to move to a block of flats with “a couple of friends” from that community.

City Housing tenancy advisers door-knocked tenants on Wednesday, and would work closely with them to explain what would happen next.

The decision to demolish the Granville Flats was a mutual one between the council, which owns the buildings, and the Wellington Tenths Trust, which owns the land. The land until now has been leased in perpetuity to the council.

Tenths Trust chairman Anaru Smiler called that decision a historic moment for the Trust and its owners, who were descendants from hapu of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama, Taranaki, and Ngāti Ruanui.

“The land is part of the original tenths land blocks dating back to the 1839 deed of purchase with the New Zealand Company,” Smiler said. “Having full control of our whenua means we can provide better opportunities for our people.”

He wasn’t “insensitive to the situation” for tenants, but understood the council would re-house them. Future plans for the site hadn’t been confirmed at this early stage, he said.

Councillor Tamatha Paul understood why the change was necessary.

“It’s really good that mana whenua can self-determine what they want for that spot,” Paul said. “It’s an important piece of land, especially in the future if it’s along the spine of light rail.”

The flats were rundown, with tenants often justly complaining about conditions in them. “It’s sad, nonetheless, cause there’s a beautiful community there,” she said.

Mayor Andy Foster said the Granville Flats were “seismically challenged”, with two of the three buildings “barely scraping by” when it came to compliance with the earthquake code.

In 2020, the cost to upgrade those buildings had been estimated at $28 million, he said. Foster believed that figure would now surpass the $30m mark, with construction costs rising.

Any upgrades would’ve come at a time of financial hardship for the council’s housing arm. A so-called “graph of doom” foretells insolvency for City Housing by next June.

The council has consulted over transferring its housing operations into a community housing provider, with hopes the move might eventually reverse its fortunes.

Tenants, meanwhile, have been lobbying the Government for access to a rental subsidy, which the council also predicts would turn an annual $6m deficit into a $5m surplus.