Council owns an area of land to the south and east of Taupō, known as the East Urban Lands. This land, when developed, could hold up to 1600 residential sections.
Council plans to release this land for sale over time, to meet demand for new sections.
In recent years however, it has become apparent that house prices in Taupō township are out of the reach of low to medium-income buyers – people who would have been able to afford a home in the past before the housing crisis pushed house prices out of reach of many. This has prompted a re-evaluation of Council’s strategy of simply selling the land to developers.
Council has already invested in earthworks on a 116-section parcel of the East Urban Lands and proposes to partner with a construction consortium to deliver 38 quality, attractive but smaller homes in this area, that would be targeted at working people on moderate incomes who could afford to service a mortgage. These homes would be subject to buyer eligibility criteria.
We would expect these homes to come to the market in late 2025 or 2026.
This project is not funded by rates and has minimal impact on Council debt as the construction partner bears the development risk. The money to kick-start the project has come from Council’s strategic property reserve.
This project supports one of the goals of Council’s Housing Strategy, adopted in 2023, which aims to see more availability and choice of housing available in the local market.
