State-led gentrification and impacts on residents and community in Glen Innes, Auckland

Abstract

Auckland’s suburb of Glen Innes is currently undergoing redevelopment that can be described as state-led gentrification. As the central government owns a significant portion of the housing stock, the State at both a central and local government level is heavily involved within this gentrification process. At a time when Auckland is facing a purported housing shortage, Glen Innes’ central location – approximately a 16-minute drive from Auckland’s CBD and the suburbs close proximity to the popular Eastern Bay beaches has repositioned the area as prime real estate. This thesis explores the processes and implications of state-led gentrification underway in Glen Innes through an exploration narratives provided by local residents. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s (1968) ‘right to the city’ argument as a theoretical framework the thesis considers the way the right to a community, sense of place and belonging has been repositioned as a right reserved for urban elite within a neoliberal city. There are currently two development projects working simultaneously in the area, the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company (a partnership between Housing New Zealand and Auckland Council) and Creating Communities (a private development company contracted out by Housing New Zealand). To date, 156 households have been relocated from their Housing New Zealand homes to make way for new housing developments in the area. While some of these tenants have been relocated within the Tāmaki area, a number of these residents have been displaced from their communities completely. Alongside this redevelopment in Glen Innes, New Zealand’s state-housing policy has undergone radical restructuring with the passing of the Social Housing Reform Act 2014. This shift in policy not only supports the gentrification of Glen Innes but is also paving the way for similar redevelopments throughout New Zealand in the near future. The thesis demonstrates that the state-led gentrification currently un-folding in Glen Innes, displacing a sizable proportion of the community at a rapid rate, has had a significant impact on those left behind. It is argued that this situation differs from previous Auckland examples of gentrification as the State is playing an active role in transforming entire neighbourhoods rather than facilitating the upgrade of individual houses and neighbourhoods. Further, the displacement of Housing New Zealand’s tenants is disrupting communities that have been well established over time. The thesis demonstrates the significance of these processes for understanding the structure of urban life in contemporary Auckland, the place of society’s most vulnerable and the implications for the most basic urban rights of community and belonging. Key words: state-housing, state-led gentrification, right to the city, Glen Innes