Thames Housing Stocktake

Thames-Coromandel is experiencing challenging times, the district has both an ageing population and a large percentage of unoccupied homes, due to holiday homes. The industries which service demand from retirees and holiday-makers are generally low productivity and consequently many of the jobs on offer to workers are of low pay. All of this was creating a housing situation that Thames Coromandel District Council (TCDC)wanted to understand and position themselves to respond. Veros were appointed to complete the Thames-Coromandel District Housing Stocktake, a housing stocktake assessment and commercial viability analysis targeted at determining positive and negative trends in housing stock and supply.

The Thames-Coromandel District is extremely diverse in terms of housing needs across the five community board areas. Challenges differ significantly in each of these areas, in particular the eastern and western coasts of the peninsular. For the Veros Property Advisory team, capturing the trends and challenges faced by each township was a complex multi-faceted puzzle. The stocktake investigated the existing housing demand and supply across the five community board areas. It provided an understanding of what was driving the provision of housing and where action needed to be taken to close housing gaps. The viability assessment went a step further in analysing the housing typologies predicted to provide the best development return.

Our ability to look at development, growth and planning with a practitioners eye helped provide TCDC with a unique insight into the intricacies, risks, costs and investment expectations of the private sector as well as practical solutions and ideas to address their unique challenges.

These studies have contributed to the TCDC Productivity Plan, aimed at ‘catalysing a positive change that stretches outside TCDC’s normal remit as a Council’ and review of district planning rules for housing and development.