This page is all about Social and Economic developments in Opotiki - Adobe 0r Earth (Mud) Brick houses, Insulation Programs, Artificial Reef aquatic habitats and Marine (Mussel Farm) Development


Welcome to Opotiki

for Original and Innovative Projects.

Mussel Farm - Whakatohea Maori Trust Board with Bay of Plenty Mussels Ltd and Eastern Sea farms Ltd

•  MUSSEL FARM Information

Opotiki Trade Training has been the catalyst for a number of imaginative projects, and other creative responses to unemployment are evolving here.


•  ADOBE - MUDBRICK HOMES •  INSULATION PROJECT •  TRADE TRAINING

 

OPOTIKI TRADE TRAINING LTD

Opotiki Trade Training has been a private training establishment in Opotiki since 1988 and has contributed to Opotiki and Eastern Bay's employment, housing, health, training and business well being. With contracts to Skill New Zealand to deliver training programmes to long-term unemployed, it is currently offering programmes in carpentry/joinery, earth building technology, new skills for women, automotive skills for youth and Training in Enterprise. OTT is keen to share this technology with the rest of New Zealand, and is willing to enroll students from other parts of the country.

Opotiki Trade Training has promoted housing research and one outcome of this work was the successful 1500 Home Insulation Retrofit Project.

Another outcome has been the launching of a Group Self Build Housing Project in Opotiki. This project is a philosophy that seeks to get a double return on dollars spent. They are seeking to use the process of housing a family to:
  •   Raise the parent's skill levels
  •  Develop a self-help approach in parents and their children
  •  Provide real time training opportunities for long-term unemployed
  •  Develop building technology that is widely usable by local communities
  •  To move people off welfare and into employment
  •  To provide training in a wide range of trade and life skills to a wide range of people
  •  Role model the idea of self help for the wider community, particularly welfare beneficiaries
  •  Role model self build houses for other communities throughout New Zealand


Custom Built Joinery for Earth Brick homes
Learning to use a micrometer on an engine cylinder
On The Job Skills for Women Course

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•  Adobe - Earth (Mud) Brick Housing Project
Contact NZ Earth Building Association

Click on a Pic to see a larger version. Page links are in blue.


Everybody plays a part
This is all about Family
Everybody learns skills
About 13 weeks from start to finish a house

 


The inside view
Finishing off the Shower
The good bit - moving in

GROUP SELF BUILD/KAPA HANGA KAINGA

Group Self Build was a pilot program, jointly run by Te Puni Kokiri and the Housing Corp., to help groups of low-income families build their own houses - Groups between five and eight owner-builder households. Using the value of their labour on essential work helps pay for the cash deposit on their home loan. Owner-builders must contribute 10% in the final value as contributed labour as essential work (sweat equity). Participants attended home ownership workshops, 12 two-hour workshops that are part of the Low Deposit Rural Lending (LDRL) program.

WHARE RA TRUST

Created to develop employment, housing and community, it has sponsored the development of a subdivision of 7 sections with funding from the BOP Community Trust. It was developed with Student and Group labour under Opotiki Trade Training. This entailed design, engineering, drainage, water supply, power supply, roading and fencing with appropriate council and title approvals - a 15 month long process.

The trust now owns title to the subdivision which, when the houses are complete and the land sold, will free up the capital invested for further trust opportunities. The trust is selling the sections at cost to family members, and is seeking capital to develop the revolving fund.

The process allows wealth creation through the use of people's own labour and the interest saving on the initial cost over time - e.g. an $114,000 valuation property for $76,000 or less.

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•  Retrofit Insulation Project

Warm, Dry Homes Take Care Of The Sniffles And Sneezes


(Derived from the EECA "Home" magazine)

A pilot energy efficiency scheme which improved people's health and well-being, was tested in 50 Opotiki households and has now been applied to 1500 more households in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

The houses were fitted out with energy efficiency measures under the Opotiki Energy Efficiency Retrofit Pilot scheme.

These included ceiling and under-floor insulation, moisture barriers and draught-stopping measures. At the same time, Bay of Plenty Electricity upgraded the houses' lighting and hot water insulation, in an EECA- run Government Energy Saver Fund project. The retrofits are forecasted to generate energy savings of around $3,156 per household over their lifetime, keeping more money circulating in the Bay of Plenty economy.

The scheme has increased the occupants' well-being. Of 188 occupants in the Opotiki trial, 95 had previously reported respiratory problems such as asthma, bronchitis and emphysema. At a hui at Terere Marae, many stood up and recounted how their health and their children's health had improved since the energy efficiency measures were applied.

The package included insulation in ceilings, fog insulation under floors, moisture barrier sheets under the houses, strips around doors to prevent draughts, hot water cylinder blankets and insulation around the hot pipes coming out of the hot water cylinders.

The scheme not only brought the householders' energy costs down but made their houses more comfortable and dry, benefited the occupants' health and provided training and employment for people who had been out of work.

Although the Opotiki improvements are part of a scheme organised for a specific community, anyone can take what has been learned by the experience and apply it to their own houses, or if they are landlords, to their tenants' houses. If the tenants' money is not going out through the roof in wasted energy, they find it easier to meet the rent payments.


Keep the Heat In!
F
T

* The Opotiki project's partners were EECA, the Bay of Plenty Electricity Consumer Trust, the Bay of Plenty Community Trust, the Maori Employment and Training Commission, the Opotiki Development Project, Te Puni Kokiri Opotiki Trade Training, Pacific Health, the Child Injury Prevention Trust and others.

 

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