Oranga Tamariki has confirmed it is working with two consultancy agencies on its restructure and change proposal, which has 447 net jobs in the firing line.
The proposal, being slammed by the Public Service Association (PSA), comes amid top-down calls to cut back dependency on the use of contractors and consultants across the sector.
Other agencies have vowed to cut back their use of contractors and consultants in their cost-saving efforts, with many ministries also taking a closer look at travel expenses and catering – in response to the Government’s ask to find savings and efficiencies.
In a statement, Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive of people, culture, and enabling services, Caz Anderson, confirmed the two consulting firms were providing the agency with “specialist independent organisational redesign advice” that was not available internally.
The PSA fears the use of consulting firms would add extra costs to a proposal that aims to find efficiencies.
In a statement, PSA national secretary Kerry Davies hit back at the decision, said, “the Minister for Children maintains the restructure at Oranga Tamariki is all about putting children at the centre of decision-making. It beggars belief that outside consultants, far removed from the expertise of care and protection of children and the challenges Oranga Tamariki manages every day, can develop a more effective structure for the agency.”
“All this is doing is fattening the profits of high-price consultants and adding to the expense of this rushed and reckless cost-cutting drive. It’s just not appropriate, and flies in the face of the Government’s determination to crack down on spending on consultants,” Davies said.
In the year to June, Oranga Tamariki spent $35.8 million on the use of contractors and consultants, according to data from the Public Service Commission. In the same period the year prior, the agency footed a $37.1m bill for contractor and consultant spending.
Oranga Tamariki boss Chappie Te Kani had previously acknowledged the proposal would be “a hard read” for those who are impacted.
Te Kani said the change “goes to our core” as a ministry, adding, “It fundamentally moves us away from where we are, towards the kind of ministry we need to be. A ministry that puts children at the centre of all we do.”
Recent job-cutting proposals at Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Education have come under fire for the predicted impacts they could have on vulnerable children, teachers and learners.
Reacting to the plans to axe more than 1000 roles across various departments at both agencies combined, NZEI president Mark Potter said: “These cuts will all impact ultimately on teaching and learning in the classroom.” A similar sentiment was expressed by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, which also opposed the plans.
Finance and Public Service Minister Nicola Willis recently confirmed to the Herald health, education, Oranga Tamariki, police and “other critical front-line services will face an overall funding uplift” in the upcoming Budget.
Azaria Howell is a Wellington-based multimedia reporter with an eye across the region. She joined NZME in 2022 and has a keen interest in city council decisions, public service agency reform and transport.
Buying a house just doesn’t feel possible right now.
Home prices have doubled in the last decade, with much of that growth happening in just the last four years. By one measure, housing affordability has fallen to its lowest level since the 1980s. And high interest rates have exacerbated the problem, ballooning monthly mortgage payments.
But it’s not easier on the other side of the equation. Would-be sellers — grappling with those same high interest rates — are locked into homes that may be too small for their growing families. Parents with newly empty nests would rather stay put than pay the same amount or more for a smaller home.
The result: The pandemic-era housing boom is over. Home sales in 2023 were the lowest they’ve been in nearly 30 years.
“The housing market is pretty frozen in place,” the Wall Street Journal’s housing reporter Nicole Friedman told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “There’s really kind of a standoff right now between buyers and sellers.”
So how did the housing market go from frenzy to frozen in just a few years’ time? And what might turn the heat back on?
What follows is the transcript of a conversation between King and Friedman, edited for length and clarity. —Amanda Lewellyn, producer
Noel King
Nicole, we have a very young audience, and I want you to tell us about something that I never knew about — or I never realized at all — until I got a mortgage when I was 40, which is: Interest rates actually mean something. So if I don’t know about mortgages, I might think 3 percent, 7 percent. That’s not a big deal. What does an interest rate, a higher interest rate, actually mean for a person getting a 3 percent and a person getting a 7 percent?
Nicole Friedman
So that type of change in interest rate is a huge difference in terms of the monthly payment. At a 3 percent interest rate versus a 7 percent rate, that can be a difference of hundreds of dollars — even maybe $1,000 difference — in what you’re paying every single month. And so that’s really, for many people, the difference between being able to buy a home or not, or being able to buy a home of a certain size or in a certain neighborhood versus not being able to afford it.
Noel King
Right. Because also, it’s not like you get a raise because interest rates have gone up. It’s not like any other part of your budget, or your life, gets better to account for interest rates going up.
Nicole Friedman
Absolutely. And that’s why we talk a lot about affordability, right? Homebuying affordability or housebuying power. The way that economists think about homebuying affordability usually is a combination of the price of the house, the mortgage rate, and income. So it’s really, what is that monthly payment going to be? And then, how much of your income does it take to pay that monthly payment?
The benchmark for “affordable” is that you really shouldn’t be spending more than 30 percent of your income on your housing payment. One index that tracks housing affordability from the National Association of Realtors shows that in October, homebuying affordability fell to the lowest level since the ’80s.
So even though there are times in the past when mortgage rates have been much higher than they are today, it’s really the combination of rates and prices and incomes that means that affordability is still worse.
Noel King
Okay, so there’s a third piece of this that is also super interesting, which is: If interest rates are high and fewer people are buying, it seems like that should mean the people selling have got to lower the prices of the houses. You have fewer buyers. “Okay, we have to compromise. We’re just going to make less money on this house.”
And yet, I haven’t seen many stories saying home prices in America are super low since interest rates went up and the competition waned. What is that about?
Nicole Friedman
We think about just classic economics. There are two things in setting a price: There’s demand and there’s supply.
The thing about higher mortgage rates and the fact that they rose as quickly as they did in 2022 — it really lowered demand. A lot of buyers stepped out of the market, but the increase in mortgage rates also lowered supply; a lot of home sellers are also buyers. There are people who are going to sell a home so that they can buy a home.
And these people said, “Wait a minute. [In] my current home, I have a great mortgage rate. I have a 3 percent rate. I have a low payment. If I go back out onto the market, I’m paying a higher price for that home because prices have risen in the last couple of years and I’m paying a higher mortgage rate. I cannot afford to sell my home and buy a different one. I’m just going to stay put.”
That means that the supply of homes for sale is much, much lower than normal. Any buyer who’s out on the market right now is probably noticing that there’s not a lot of inventory to choose from.
That means that even though demand is down, supply is down, too. So prices really haven’t declined in most of the country.
Noel King
Nicole, crazy question. Are there enough houses?
Nicole Friedman
Everybody basically agrees there are not enough homes, because after the financial crisis, a lot of homebuilders went out of business. The ones who were left in business were really, really financially scarred by the crisis. They were left with a lot of homes they couldn’t sell and a lot of land they couldn’t sell. So builders became a lot more cautious, and the number of homes being built fell to a much lower level. It’s taken more than a decade for homebuilding activity to really catch back up.
Noel King
The baby boomer generation gets a lot of crap for buying the seven-bedroom house with the big backyard for seven raspberries and 40 years later, still sitting on the house. Are the boomers — God bless them, every one — are they really part of the problem, or should we leave the boomers alone?
Nicole Friedman
Well, every boomer would tell you that they bought it for seven raspberries, but at a 15 percent mortgage rate. I don’t think that boomers are the problem here. It is a change from past generations that the baby boomer generation is aging in place more than past generations, and they are often working longer. They’re staying healthier longer. And so they are able to stay in their homes for longer, and that’s their choice. That’s fine. But it does mean that the typical cycle of how long somebody normally stays in their home before they sell it has gotten longer.
People are staying in their home for longer, and that does contribute to less turnover on this ladder of how people move through the housing market. Normally, you buy a starter home and then you move up to a bigger home and maybe eventually you downsize to a smaller home. That ladder gets a little jammed up if people don’t move as frequently.
But I would also say, what’s really jamming up the gears right now are those move-up buyers. That’s going to be Generation X. These are people that are in starter homes that they bought within the last five, 10 years, and they’re looking for that next move up. There may be a young family who bought a home before they had kids — or when they had just one kid, and now they have a second child and they need another bedroom — and they want a bigger home.
But those people are saying, “I can’t give up this 3 percent mortgage rate,” even though, in this “natural” cycle, they should be selling their starter home to a first-time buyer and moving into a bigger home that’s being vacated by a downsizing baby boomer. But those people are so stuck in place that they just can’t afford to make that move. Arguably, they’re really the ones right now kind of jamming up the gears.
Noel King
Americans are made to feel like we should buy houses. We hear all about the benefits. We hear much less about the drawbacks.
What does it mean that it is starting to feel less and less accessible? This thing that once upon a time and for a long time was considered to be part of the American Dream, and now there’s an entire generation — millennials, and Gen Z hot on our heels — who feel like it just might never happen?
Nicole Friedman
Yeah, I think it does feel frustrating to people. People do want to own homes, by and large. There was a theory once upon a time that millennials didn’t want to own homes. I think that’s been proven wrong.
Noel King
We were just broke! We were just broke when they were saying that about us.
Nicole Friedman
Exactly. And it’s now very clear that millennials are like prior generations. They do want to own homes.
Partly it is a financial investment: Homeownership is a key way to build wealth and has been, in this country, an important way to build wealth. But it’s also a very emotional thing. A lot of people want stability. They want a sense of ownership. They want to be able to paint their walls and redecorate their house, and they don’t want to worry about the rent going up, or about their landlord deciding to sell the building and them not being able to stay.
Right now, that gap between what it costs to rent and what it costs to own in a lot of places is pretty out of whack. It’s just much more expensive to buy right now than it typically is. And I think that people are realizing that and trying to come to terms with what it means.
But it’s also a bigger question as a society, how much we want to prioritize homeownership and homebuying affordability.
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There is something about Opening Day in baseball that looks back even as it looks forward, a Mobius strip twist in time during which the past and future co-exist. The T-Mobile magenta carpet is rolled out, then rolled back for another year. One elevator attendant wore a button proclaiming this to be their fourth opening day; another, their 23rd. The pageantry at the ballpark is familiar, if staffed by new faces: different kids running around the bases and announcing “play ball”; a national anthem from a member of a band many of us have been listening to since the days of burning CD mixes. A different Mariners legend throwing out the first pitch: this year, Nelson Cruz, taking his place in the firmament of Mariners stars by signing a one-day contract to retire as a Mariner. He threw to Félix Hernández, himself already ensconced in eternal Mariners glory, in a perfectly chaotic first pitch that involved Nelson—who said he blew out his biceps tendon in one last farewell tour of LIDOM—spiking the ball into the ground, then recovering to lob in a pitch that Félix summarily dropped. Chaos ball, is that you?
Cruz was teammates with Mitch Haniger; when asked pregame to reflect on what Haniger was like in his “younger” playing years, Cruz smiled and said Mitch had always been very mature as a player. Haniger, making his return to T-Mobile Park, enjoyed a loud ovation when he ran down the magenta carpet, a Mariner once again: when he came up to bat for the first time, the fans gave him a standing ovation, something Mitch recounted warmly postgame, calling T-Mobile a “special” place to play.
But that ovation was nothing compared to the noise they made when Haniger homered to give the Mariners their first runs of the season:
While Haniger has historically gotten a lot of his power from the pull side, this ball—102.2 mph off the bat, 372 feet to the opposite field—showed some of the improvements he’s made during his time away from the team, something he credits to a deeper swing path and different rear-arm and top-hand mechanics.
Also so back: Dylan Moore’s power. After an injury-hampered 2022, DMo—pinch-hitting in the seventh for Mitch Garver—absolutely demolished this sinker from lefty Joely Rodriguez, crushing this pitch at 104 mph 409 feet. (Scoring on the play: Mitch Haniger, who had singled, natch.) DMo’s one job is beach, and by “beach” we mean “crush lefties”; if he can be back to his power-hitting form of the past, that’s an incredible boon for this ballclub.
Per Mariners PR, that makes DMo only the second player to hit a pinch-hit home run on Opening Day, joining Roberto Petagine on April 3, 2006. Unfortunately, that game was also a loss. The Mariners have generally had a good record on Opening Day, even in the fallowest years: per stats guru Alex Mayer, the Mariners have a .655 winning percentage on home openers, third-best among all active franchises. But tonight’s game will not join that rare air.
Luis Castillo had a lot of life on his pitches but poor command, and a patient Red Sox lineup was able to sit on his pitches and exhaust his pitch count early. The Sox drew first blood in the third inning, when Rafael Devers did what Devers does best and reached across the plate to pop this sinker that didn’t quite sink over the left-field fence for a two-run homer.
I was sitting next to Alex Mayer for this game and he immediately recalled (because he has an enormous baseball computer for a brain) Devers hitting a home run off a similar pitch from Sewald in 2022, so I looked up Devers’s zone splits and dang. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
The Sox would get another run off Castillo in the fourth: Triston Casas singled, and Masataka Yoshida doubled, bringing Tyler O’Neill (who is with the Red Sox now!), who had hit into a force out, to third. O’Neill would then score when Josh Rojas almost made a great play, snagging a sharply hit grounder from Ceddanne Rafaela and touching third for the force, but then his throw home hit O’Neill in the helmet. D’oh. Another run crossed home in the fifth, again with Devers providing a big hit with a double, pushing speedy Jarren Duran to third; he’d then score on a force out.
Speaking of Tyler O’Neill, he made some history of his own tonight, becoming the first player to homer in five straight Opening Day games, torching Cody Bolton for a solo shot. For O’Neill, the achievement was probably even sweeter coming against the team that traded him away. Everything that’s old is new again (derogatory).
That gave the Red Sox six runs, and the Mariners two two-run home runs. The Mariners lineup threatened at times tonight: they had a good chance in the first, when Julio worked an 0-2 count to a 2-2 count and doubled, followed by a single from Jorge Polanco, but Mitch Garver hit into an inning-ending double play. Later, Garver would double, but be stranded by a Cal Raleigh inning-ending groundout. J.P. Crawford hit two balls with exit velocities over 107 mph, right at defenders. That’s how things would go for the Mariners tonight: the sequencing luck just wasn’t there, even as the process was. Postgame, Haniger said the results weren’t there for the team tonight, but he likes the process, and he feels like this is the most complete Mariners team he’s been a part of—significant words coming from the man who was once Nelson Cruz’s teammate.
Layered on every Opening Day is the ghost of other, previous Opening Days: time spent with friends who have moved away, family members no longer with us, and to take stock of the changes for those that remain, steps a little slower, hair a little grayer. For me, this was my first Opening Day without my dad, who passed away this February. It’s hard knowing that he won’t be there to dissect the big plays of the night with me, that he won’t get to see what this team will become. He would have really loved to see Mitch Haniger’s second act as a Mariner. But mostly, it’s hard to know that he will now only exist in memories, the layers that make up every Opening Day experience. Maybe by this time next year it will be a fond memory, easier to see him woven into the fabric of the history of my personal Mariners fandom and the Opening Day experience writ large: another star in the firmament, and a reminder of how inextricably linked what was, is, and will be all are; maybe by then it will be easier to find the beauty in that. Maybe next year.
Property investors to get slightly less tax relief than promised in National-Act coalition agreement
The Government has decided not to give residential property investors as much tax relief as National promised Act in the parties’ coalition agreement.
Rather than start phasing out the interest limitation rule in the current tax year, as stated in the agreement, it will start being phased out in the year to March 31, 2025.
The interest limitation rule prevents residential property investors from writing off mortgage interest as an expense when paying tax. Exclusions apply, including for new builds.
Under the existing law, introduced by the former Labour Government when the property market was overheating, no interest can be deducted for property bought from March 27, 2021.
For property bought before then, 50 per cent interest can be deducted in the current tax year, which winds up at the end of this month.
National and Act had agreed to allow investors to deduct 60 per cent of their interest in the current tax year.
Making this change would have been unorthodox, as it would have had a retrospective effect (applied to the past). Some investors would have received tax refunds.
It also would have meant the Government would not have received as much revenue as it was banking on getting.
This might have been particularly problematic in the current environment, with the sluggish economy seeing the Government collect less tax than forecast by Treasury. Indeed, Finance Minister Nicola Willis is already walking back from National’s pre-election commitment to return the books to surplus by 2026-27.
So the Government has decided to keep the rules as they are for the current tax year, then allow investors to write off 80 per cent of their mortgage interest in the year to March 2025, and all their interest in the year to March 2026.
Act leader and Associate Finance Minister David Seymour didn’t dwell on the fact he lost his battle with National on the matter, noting it was easier to avoid making a retrospective change. He didn’t mention what National might have given him to agree to deviate from the coalition agreement.
Rather, he focused on the positives for both investors and renters.
“Landlords have been hit with a double whammy of rising mortgage interest rates and increasing interest deductibility limitations during a cost-of-living crisis. These costs are inevitably passed on to tenants, one of the reasons New Zealand has all-time high rental costs,” Seymour said.
“Removing the ability for landlords to claim interest expenses made residential properties less attractive and reduced the pool of properties for tenants to choose from.”
An argument Labour made when it introduced the interest limitation rule was that it put investors on the same footing as owner-occupiers, who can’t deduct their mortgage interest as expenses to reduce their tax bills.
Investors hit back, saying that interest can normally be expensed in business, so preventing this in regard to a certain type of investment created inconsistency in the tax system.
Nonetheless, Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds accused the Government of abandoning first-home buyers, struggling to get ahead.
“The ripples of this decision will be felt for generations,” she said.
“Landlords will become tax cut millionaires, once again showing the Coalition Government’s priorities are a disgrace.”
Edmonds said the decision showed the priorities were “not lunches in schools, the smokefree generation or continuing the Cook Strait ferries” but “it’s mega landlords”.
“The assertion that this will bring the cost of rent down is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, there is nothing in today’s announcement that guarantees tenants will have savings passed on to them as a result,” Edmonds said.
“This tax advantage for the wealthy is not only set to be unfair for tenants, it shuts first home buyers out from getting a foot on the property ladder. Parents and grandparents who hope for their children to own their own home will realise it is a more difficult path to homeownership than ever before.”
The interest limitation rule change will be added to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax and Remedial Matters) Bill, which is currently before a select committee and is due to be passed before the end of the month.
Act had campaigned before the election on removing the interest limitation rule in one go, rather than phasing it out.
If it had its way, it would also have scrapped the bright-line test (a de facto capital gains tax on investment property), which will be reduced from 10 to two years from July 1.
“To overcome New Zealand’s many challenges there needs to be an environment where investment and development is encouraged. This [interest limitation rule] change is a step in the right direction,” Seymour said.
Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald’s Wellington Business Editor, based in the Parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.
A Real Estate Authority complaints assessment committee issued a penalty decision in the case, fining both agents $1000 each. Photo / NZME
A Harcourts real estate agent and her supervisor have been found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct for their roles with land where subdivision was not allowed.
A Real Estate Authority complaints assessment committee issued a penalty
Occupiers moved on to a property on Ahipara’s Wharo Way in October 2021, after a significant pohutukawa tree they believed had been protected by being placed in a reserve was not protected at all.
Kaitāia GP Cecil Williams is thinking about leaving the town after 35 years, after being “forced” to sell his property, which had been occupied by a local iwi, for about $130,000 less than its Quotable Value.
Williams’ property at 1 Wharo Way, Ahipara, was first occupied in October 2021 by members of Te Rarawa who were unhappy that a culturally significant pōhutukawa on the property had been partly felled for a house site.
The iwi members were angry because they were led to believe the tree had been included in a reserve at the front of the land when it was subdivided. However, the reserve was later made smaller and the tree included in the property at 1 Wharo Way that the Williamses bought.
The iwi members felt betrayed over what were assurances the culturally significant site at Ahipara would be fully protected as a public reserve.
Williams said he and his wife, Marna, checked when they bought the section that there were no land claims or any other issues with it, and after being assured there were none, bought it for $500,000. The tree was not listed as protected or significant on the council’s website.
He said they were the innocent parties in the debacle and had done nothing wrong, yet were seriously out of pocket due to no actions of their own.
The land was occupied for almost a year before Far North District Council, in an effort to solve the impasse, agreed to buy the land from the Williamses.
At its August meeting where it agreed to buy the land, Kahika/Mayor Moko Tepania acknowledged that historic actions had seen undertakings to protect 1 Wharo Way broken. While the council would never be a default Office of Treaty Settlements, it had acknowledged there were special circumstances that led to the motion for council to negotiate the purchase of the land supported, he said.
Williams said the couple were caught in a fait accompli as they had to sell the land to the council because nobody else would buy a property that was being occupied and under such dispute.
“Who would buy land that was being occupied and nothing was being done to move the occupiers off?”
The couple are angry and upset that they had to settle with the council for $437,500 for the land when the QV valuation a year earlier was for $560,000, and feel they had no choice but to sell, given that nobody else would buy it.
At the start of the occupation, Williams offered to sell the land to Te Rarawa, or the council for the $500,000 they paid for it, and is now upset they are out of pocket by so much.
“It’s prime waterfront land, but the council’s independent valuation in September last year said it was only worth $400,000. Yet the council’s own Quotable Value in October the year before said the property was worth $560,000. I know prices have dropped a bit, but I can’t see how such a piece of coastal land has dropped by $160,000 in a year. That’s hard to take.”
FNDC has been approached for comment, but had not responded by publishing time.
Williams said the property was to be where they built their dream home to retire, but after 35 years as a GP in Kaitāia, the saga had left such a sour taste that they were seriously considering selling up their other property and moving away.
“It’s hard enough as it is to get GPs up here, but this has really hit us hard. The stress and the anxiety this has caused us, the sleepless nights and worry have been unbearable. Through no fault of our own we have now had to take a huge financial hit, and I’m upset that after all these years helping this community, we’ve had such little support and are seen as the bad guys.”
He said they were not aware the pōhutukawa was supposed to be protected or that it was supposed to have been on a reserve; had they known, they would not have bought the land in the first place.
Williams acknowledged he had stopped paying rates on the land from when the occupiers moved in because he was unable to use the land, and neither the council nor police would move the protesters off. The roughly $8000 outstanding rates were paid from the property sale price to the council.
Mike Dinsdale is the editor of the Northland Age who also covers general news for the Advocate. He has worked in Northland for almost 34 years and loves the region.
Rising debt costs and shrinking valuations are forcing major commercial property developers to sell millions of dollars worth of assets.
Precinct Properties has sold about $700m worth in the past 18 months, while hospital developer Vital Healthcare has sold $220m worth and Argosy just sold $20m worth.
“When interest rates revert as fast as they have, and when values come down, and we’ve seen in our business probably 7 or 8 per cent reduction in values, then you’ve got to stay in front of it,” Precinct CEO Scott Pritchard told Markets with Madison.
“We’ve been managing our levels of debt through asset sales and through capital partnerships and through raising new capital.”
The largest listed office developer and owner had drawn down $1.1 billion worth of debt, paying an average interest rate of 5.3 per cent – surprisingly less than most mortgagors.
That’s because it didn’t just rely on banks for funding. Precinct was now partnering with offshore investors including Singapore sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms and high net worth individuals.
“The key is to have a really diverse source of funds and to have a really laddered maturity profile, which is all the lessons that a lot of businesses learned out of the GFC to be honest.
“If we get other sources of capital to invest alongside us, it means we can do more things and ultimately drive a higher return for our shareholders.”
It was a strategy Vital was now considering too – seemingly a potential funding solution in a higher interest rate environment.
Pritchard said offshore investors were especially keen on residential property, which was driving Precinct’s push into developing apartments on Auckland’s waterfront.
But would that impact Precinct’s future net rental income, currently earned on offices?
Watch Scott Pritchard discuss how developers are managing debt in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.
Get investment insights from executives and experts on Markets with Madison every Monday and Friday here on the NZ Herald, on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
Sponsored by CMC Markets.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this programme is of a general nature, and is not intended to be personalised financial advice. We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional to suit your individual circumstances.
Madison Reidy is the host of the NZ Herald’s investment show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.
OPINION
Q: We are a couple in our mid-50s. Our combined income only recently increased to $210,000. We each have around $70,000 in KiwiSaver. Minimal savings. In 2021 we purchased a two-year-old investment property in
Bert Potter (front) and residents of the Centrepoint Community in Albany. Photo / Supplied
A multimillion-dollar Auckland property that was the site of New Zealand’s most infamous commune, Centrepoint, has been withdrawn from sale without finding a buyer.
The huge site in the city’s north has a council valuation of almost $9 million and had been billed as “one of the last significant underdeveloped landholdings on the fringe of Albany”.
It also has a dark history as it was where Bert Potter served as the spiritual head of the Centrepoint commune.
Potter was arrested in 1990 for sexual abuse and drugs crime, with survivors sharing stories of life in the commune in the acclaimed documentary, Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story, in 2021. Many of them had been exploited as children by adults living at the commune.
The commune was shut in 2000 and Potter died in 2012, aged 86.
Since then, the property at 14 Mills Lane has been run as a wellness and retreat centre, before being put up for sale and marketed last year as a big development opportunity.
However, agent Michael Nees, from Bayleys North Shore Commercial, said the property did not get a buyer “so it was withdrawn from the market” at the seller’s wish.
Advertisements for the sale of the site were taken down from property website OneRoof in December.
Council has valued the 7.62ha site at $8.7m, but it is believed the owners had hoped to get more than $10m.
Owners Prema Charitable Trust bought the property in 2008 for just over $4m. The trust operates the Kawai Purapura retreat at the site, which was also home to the Wellpark College of Natural Therapies.
It had been advertised as “an incomparable opportunity” to secure a huge slice of city land where applying for rezoning could generate “considerable value uplift”.
The site sits on land overlooking Albany’s commercial precinct and is close to Albany Bus Station and Westfield shopping centre.
Centrepoint was opened by Potter in 1977 and at its peak had a permit for 244 fulltime residents.
It was based on therapeutic encounter groups popularised in California in the 1960s, promising social transformation by encouraging open communication.
The commune was shut down in 2000 after some leaders, including Potter, were convicted of sexual abuse and drugs crimes.
Potter was convicted and sentenced in 1990 to three and a half years in jail on drug charges and in 1992 to seven and a half years for indecent assaults on five children, some as young as 3.
Other men were also convicted of indecently assaulting minors, sexually assaulting minors and attempted rape of a minor.
A 2010 Massey University study revealed that one in every three children at Centrepoint was sexually abused.
Three survivors from the infamous cult spoke out in 2021, writing an open letter calling for restorative justice for children who were abused.
Christchurch GP Caroline Ansley wrote the letter with two other Centrepoint survivors, who are featured in the TVNZ docudrama Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story.
Ansley said realising she was not the only one who was abused was empowering.
“I had to ask myself what’s worse – fear of exposure or the disappointment of not advocating for the right thing.”
The trio asked in their letter that former Centrepoint members consider “their obligations towards the children of the community” and acknowledge the resulting social, emotional and psychological difficulties many still experience as adults.
“We ask you to hear our voices. We ask you to set aside your complex feelings surrounding this issue and acknowledge our realities. We ask that you work with us to find ways to enable healing and restoration of the history.”
Drugs such as LSD and ecstasy were manufactured on the property and taken in group experiments that involved youngsters.
“This potent mix of social control, parental child neglect, drug use and hyper-sexuality set the scene for child abuse to occur,” the letter stated.
The signatories, some of them anonymous but known to the authors, include Louise Winn. She was only 11 when she was brought to Potter’s hut by his wife Margie. She was later also sexually abused by his son John Potter and other men.
To keep predators away at night, the girl barricaded herself with junk in her caravan on the property or escaped into the bush.