There are currently close to 225 Upper Clutha households on the waitlist for properties through the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust (QLCHT), which is working hard to deliver more local houses.

The long-running local trust provides affordable housing for low-to-middle income earners in the district. 

The affordable homes are made possible when the QLCHT receives land from developers through a contribution process with Queenstown Lakes District Council.

QLCHT chief executive Julie Scott said the trust had helped “around 50” households into secure, affordable housing in the Upper Clutha to date.

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Some of the QLCHT homes at Northlake. PHOTO: Supplied

Additional homes around the Upper Clutha are currently at various stages of completion.

“We’ve finished 28 in Longview and there are another 30 to come,” Julie said. “We’re building two at Mt Cardrona Station and there are another two to come from the developer.”

Four homes at the Hikuwai subdivision in Wānaka are also being finished at the moment, adding to the six that have already been completed there, she said.

Julie said the trust was a “big fan” of higher density housing and she hoped two other sites would be suitable for medium or high density houses.

“We own an empty section at McDougall Street and the plan is to redevelop that whole site and get some more senior housing,” she said. “If there is an opportunity to increase density there we certainly will.”

She is also hoping some land earmarked for QLCHT in the Three Parks area will be zoned for high density.

QLCHT, which is staffed by a team of six, provides five different housing programmes, including Public Housing, Affordable Rental, Senior Housing, Rent Saver and Secure Home.

Each of them are designed to provide secure and affordable housing, in a district where the median house price is close to twice the national average.

Last month an inclusionary zoning proposal that could have substantially increased the amount of land QLCHT received, thereby increasing the number of homes it could deliver, was withdrawn at the recommendation of an independent hearing panel.

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Julie said the current waitlist for homes in the Upper Clutha makes up around 20 percent of the full, district-wide waitlist.

Learn more about QLCHT here.