The development on display is part of the Fenchurch Regeneration, the first Tamaki Redevelopment Company (TRC) project in GI: 34 new state houses, an early childhood education centre and the transformation of an unused Scout hall into a community hub. An integrated community plan.
The TRC is a joint venture between the Crown (59 per cent) and council (41 per cent). It emerged in 2012 with $8.5 million in government funding, boosted in August with an additional $9.6 million over three years. Its role is to act as a go-between to smooth community tensions and advance progress.
Fa’afiu, the firm’s communications and stakeholder engagement chief, has street cred. “I was raised in three state houses on this one street — Leybourne Circle. That’s my hood,” he tells me. “It was a great neighbourhood, I enjoyed my childhood here.”
When he was 13, his parents, shift workers, bought a state house in Panmure under the Housing NZ equity scheme of the early 1990s, and he attended Sacred Heart College.
Born in Samoa, Fa’afiu was the one who looked after his siblings when his parents went to work: “You grow up very quickly in that situation.” After university, where he studied law, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat, mainly in Indonesia, and had a stint at NZ Post.
How has he found the return? “Coming back — same old. I’m very surprised that the movement has been as slow as it is.”
Did he find a community? “It was definitely still a community. You still have that strong sense, but it’s hard being a community when — look at these houses — they’re living in these shitty homes.”
Was it like that when he lived here? “They were shitty homes, but they were warm homes because of the love of your parents and your family. One of our three homes in Leybourne was a pre-cut. We were in it for only about three months. It was terrible — cold, damp. My brother got rheumatic fever when he was six.”
“It was terrible — cold, damp. My brother got rheumatic fever when he was six.”
Peter Fa’afiu
Peter Fa’afiu talks about urban regeneration in a way that makes you wonder why everyone else found it so hard. He starts with the idea of a “social licence” — a concept he nicked from the oil industry. It means, does the community want you there?
“When I arrived, I said, ‘Did northern GI have that social licence?’ And the answer is, ‘No,’ and the remnants of that is the graffiti [on the first new houses] and the protesters.”
Fa’afiu notes the two state houses that were removed to make way for 11 had been empty for 12 to 18 months. “This is a lesson learned — redevelop houses on empty sites rather than interfering with the daily lives of families.”
He says his social licence to proceed comes from 1100 responses to a survey sent out last year to the community of 16,000. “The overriding comment was, ‘Less hui, more doey.’ We have got to stop consulting and get on with it in partnership with the community.”
Right now, that includes setting up a group to run the new community hub on Fenchurch St and holding a Special Housing Area workshop for property owners in Panmure, where the next neighbourhood development is planned.
Tensions still simmer. The Tamaki Housing Group is still not happy. In late January a workshop at the Glen Innes Library was shut down when it was invaded by the THG and other protesters, some yelling, “You have no mandate!”
Does Fa’afiu’s company try to engage with them? “Yes we do. We would love constructive feedback. But when you curse and scream and swear in the presence of other residents who have been here a long time and want to listen… When we ask you to have a korero, saying, ‘Fuck off,’ is not the best response you can have from someone that is concerned about your community.”
Fa’afiu and the TRC are showing how redevelopment ought to be done: slowly, alongside new community facilities and without evicting people from their homes.
“The overriding comment was, ‘Less hui, more doey.’”