When WRAP was first formed, we needed to understand the problem in Whaingaroa – what’s our current shortage of affordable housing, how many homes will we need in the future to meet predicted demand and what’s the impact on our community of what we know is a high cost of houses to buy or rent.

In order to enlist support from regional or central government and to be able to describe what we need to potential investors or partners, we need accurate information. We can also measure our progress by knowing where we started and how much impact we’ve made.

Our work so far:

• 2017 – Kelvin Norgrove of StrategEase was engaged to produce a housing stocktake and analysis of our housing gaps. The Raglan Housing Study was published in August 2018

• 2018 – Householder survey of Raglan Ward residents completed to analyse housing stress and impact of the shortage and high cost of rentals and the high entry level cost of housing to buy on the community. Housing stress: the impact of rising house prices and changing access to rental properties on the community of Raglan was published in March 2019

• 2019 – Feedback from Conversations about Housing, a day long community forum held in the Raglan Town Hall on 3rd November 2019, was compiled into a community blueprint for affordable housing for Whaingaroa