The Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust (QLCHT) has won an international accolade for its groundbreaking Secure Home programme.

The local assisted-ownership programme took out the Leading Innovation Award at the Australasian Housing Institute’s recent Brighter Future Awards. 

The awards recognise new thinking in the housing sector, celebrating initiatives that have led to significant change in an organisation and can be applied more broadly to other housing organisations.

QLCHT chair Richard Thomas said the trust was delighted to win the award, which acknowledges years of innovation.

“With a number of other organisations across the country now lining up to use our Secure Home programme, we’re incredibly proud of breaking ground here and honoured to receive such recognition,” he said.

The first of its kind in New Zealand, Secure Home is a programme where buyers purchase their homes through a 100-year land lease arrangement with the trust.

While the QLCHT retains full ownership of the property, the household essentially purchases the right to occupy that property at the cost of the house construction, excluding land.

The household then pays an annual ground rent to the trust for use of the land, which is set well below market value and only ever increases annually with inflation for the period the household remains in the programme.

It is one of five accommodation programmes offered by the QLCHT to Queenstown Lakes residents.

The QLCHT is a not-for-profit social enterprise created to manage and deliver affordable housing solutions to members of the local community.

PHOTO: Supplied