Dear Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities,

On 10th April I received a letter from Housing Minister Chris Bishop stating that KO has withdrawn as developer for Teitei Drive as it is no longer financially viable for Kainga Ora. It would appear the way the letter is written (and from 28th Feb letter from KO) that this would be the last on the matter and that the houses would no longer be affordable, thus not affordable for KO either as public homes. The letter from Chris Bishop addresses a number of other concerns that I will not go into here.

Following the 28th Feb letter sent to the public, KO communicated with RDC on 5th March stating "Kāinga Ora is willing to continue as a development manager for the Teitei Drive, Ohakune project and as a public housing build partner. In this capacity, Kāinga Ora is willing to pre-purchase up to 15 homes for public housing in this development"

As per a fyi-26393 request made 10th April, we are requesting information regarding staff members attending the Teitei site and a meeting at council and will await the response 9 May 2024 being 20 working days.

On 29th Feb 2024 we wrote an article (https://www.saveohakune.com/post/ko-brie...) regarding briefing letter (AH 23 088) sent to incoming minister Chris Bishop, to which the briefing failed to include some critical information, such that the build cost was to be exceeded by $2.3m and was discovered in May/June 2023 only a month after signing the CIP agreement April 2023 and that KO would fund these additional costs.

It is our opinion that to date, Kainga Ora has not been fully truthful with the housing minister or his advisors with regards to Teitei Drive and perhaps other projects.

I ask for the following
1./ Copies of approval requests and responses for the circa $2.3m to the board or management between April 2023 - March 2024.
2./ Copies of the same above but to ministers or other government agencies
3./ Any communications or briefings to ministers or other government agencies since 28th feb till today.
4./ A copy of directives received from ministers or government agencies regarding Teitei Drive this year
5./ Copies of emails, agendas, notes, communications (any form) or documents relating to Teitei Drive since 5th March 2024 as we of the understanding that Kainga Ora still wishes to be development manager for Teitei however communications from the Minister says otherwise.

Yours faithfully,

Ohakune Ratepayers and Residents' Society Inc