Services delivered
One of more than 30 partnerships Kāinga Maha has delivered with councils and their housing providers. In Wellington, we carried out an independent, ward-by-ward assessment of housing demand and need across the city. It gave Te Toi Mahana the evidence base to invest with confidence, and helped build the wider public case for social housing in the capital.
The Challenge
Te Toi Mahana was established by Wellington City Council in 2023 to grow and steward the city’s social housing portfolio. Two developments were already underway, both focused on one- and two-bedroom homes, and Te Toi Mahana wanted certainty that this direction matched Wellington’s actual housing need, ward by ward, now and over the decades ahead. That kind of granular, evidence-led picture didn’t exist for the city. Te Toi Mahana approached Kāinga Maha to build it.
Our Role
Kāinga Maha delivered an independent housing demand and needs assessment for Wellington City, at both city and ward level. We separated demand, what people want and can afford, from need, the shortfall between what exists and what’s actually required, and modelled both against a 30-year horizon to 2053.
We adapted a recognised international methodology for assessing housing need to New Zealand conditions, and tested it with Te Toi Mahana across three workshops as the work progressed. Every recommendation was built to answer the questions in front of them: what bedroom mix to build, what tenure types to offer, and where across the city to prioritise it.
The assessment covered the full picture:
who’s moving to the city, and how household needs are shifting as Wellington grows and ages
what people can actually afford, and how rents, prices and affordability pressure vary across the city
who’s missing out today, from the housing register to overcrowding and households priced out of a suitable home
what the right mix looks like, bedroom sizes and tenure types matched to where the need is greatest
what it will take to deliver, potential financing and funding settings that enable affordable developments to proceed
The result gave Te Toi Mahana a clear, objective and defensible view of where the gaps in the city’s social and affordable housing stock really sit, and the confidence to direct its future development pipeline, and its capital, toward the homes Wellington needs most.
The Outcome
Te Toi Mahana now has a strong, evidence-based view of housing demand and need across Wellington City, ward by ward, to guide its development pipeline for years to come. Kāinga Maha's report, Finding Home, gives them a defensible evidence base built to be refreshed as conditions change, rather than commissioned from scratch each time, and was one of three key pieces of research feeding into the community housing provider's own thought piece, Delivering Value, that makes the case for more social and affordable housing in the capital.
Client Testimonial
“Kāinga Maha brought a rigorous and analytical approach to their work. They worked effectively, within a constrained timeframe and a detailed evidence base, to deliver Te Toi Mahana timely and professional advice.”
Building somewhere new?
This is the kind of groundwork that pays off well beyond one project: a clear picture of where housing need actually sits helps any development, CHP, iwi, or council, land in the right place for the people who need it.