Wellington City Council is currently consulting (until 31 August) on a proposed change to its lease agreement with Kāinga Ora for the Arlington site in Mount Cook. In October 2021, Kāinga Ora approved plans to build 301 homes at a cost of $296 million. In 2023, development came to a halt when updated cost estimates identified a further $123 million would be needed to deliver the developed as originally planned.
Now Kāinga Ora has come back with a new, less expensive, proposal. The revised plan provides 104 homes: a mix of one and two-bedroom apartments, twelve four-bedroom terrace homes, and a community room for residents. It will use only two-thirds of the site, leaving the rest in Council hands. Kāinga Ora has asked the Council to vary the existing ground lease to allow the revised development to proceed. If the Council approves the lease variation, it will receive $6 million in grant funding to support housing-related services.
On the one hand, it is good news that Kāinga Ora is building public housing, and that the government is funding housing-related services. The remaining part of the land on the Arlington site may also be used for housing: hopefully, public housing. The community surrounding Arlington have consistently supported public housing on the site, during the previous Council consultation and in more recent research. 1
On other hand, it is deeply disappointing that the number of public homes that will be provided (104) is so much lower than originally proposed (301) and the number at the original, pre-demolition Arlington (269).1 As at June 2026, there were 609 households on the social housing register in Wellington. That doesn’t include the many others who could benefit from living in public housing who have not applied or do not meet the specific criteria – what Public Housing Futures has called the ‘true waitlist’.2 Wellington desperately needs more public housing, particularly in well-located central neighbourhoods where people can easily access jobs, services, schools, public transport, and community networks.
Kāinga Ora says it is too expensive to build the 301 homes originally envisioned. I don’t know anything about the costings prepared, but I do know that the value that public housing provides in the long-term can easily be overlooked. We know about the benefits of public housing. Hospitalisation rates, and mental health outpatient usage, decrease when people move from emergency to public housing.3 Public housing tenants have higher self-reported wellbeing than private rental tenants, probably explained by their greater housing security.4 Police offences, court charges and instances of victimisation were significantly lower for youth living public housing than in the general population, after controlling for a range of socio-economic factors.5 Qualitative research with public housing tenants and housing providers help explain how public housing support wellbeing through providing housing security, social connectedness, good-quality housing and access to supportive landlords and services.6–9 These benefits also translate to cost savings in our health and justice systems.
I encourage anyone interested to make a submission on the Talk Wellington site. For my part, I’m going to tell the Council that I’m disappointed in the drop in the number of homes Arlington will provide, and that I hope they will do all they can to ensure Kāinga Ora and other social housing providers can build public rental housing in equally well-located sites all over Wellington, including at Arlington.
1. McDonald, K. The Majority View or the Vocal Few? Homeowner Perspectives on Public Housing in a Mixed Tenure Neighbourhood [Unpublished Master’s Thesis]. (University of Otago, Wellington, Wellington, 2025). https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/esploro/outputs/graduate/The-Majority-View-or-the-Vocal/9926748888101891
2. CPAG & Public Housing Futures. A People’s Review of Kāinga Ora: In Defence of Public Housing. (Action Station, Wellington, 2024). https://www.cpag.org.nz/research/a-peoples-review-of-kainga-ora-in-defense-of-public-housing
3. Fasoro, A. et al. The impact of transitions from emergency housing to public housing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Discover Public Health 21, 1–13 (2024). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12982-024-00320-9
4. Grimes, A. et al. Housing Tenure and Subjective Wellbeing: The Importance of Public Housing. Appl. Res. Qual. Life 1–24 (2024) doi:10.1007/s11482-024-10369-y.
5. Yu, C., Bierre, S., Pehi, T. & Pierse, N. Continued Tenancy in Public Housing and Youth Justice Outcomes: Evidence From New Zealand. Soc. Policy Adm. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.70093 (2026) .
6. Witten, K. et al. Placemaking for tenant wellbeing: exploring the decision-making of public and community housing providers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellbeing, Space and Society 1–14 (2025) doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2025.100258.
7. Leigh, L. et al. Cultivating wellbeing: healing effects of an urban māra kai (community garden) in community housing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Local Environ. 1–18 (2025) doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2025.2502374.
8. Chisholm, E. et al. “Like a family without being a family”: Social connectedness between social housing tenants in Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellbeing, Space and Society 10, 1–12 (2026). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666558125000995
9. Russell, E., McKerchar, C., Thompson, L. & Berghan, J. Māori experiences of social housing in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online 18, 352–369 (2023). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1177083X.2023.2180762
One Two Three Home 
Thanks! I was disappointed too, and will do a submission.