The Whaingaroa Raglan Affordable Housing Project came into being in 2017 when a small group of concerned community leaders came together to air their concerns about the impacts of ever rising house prices in Raglan.

The Raglan Community House manager Mike Rarere, was observing an increasing number of visitors to the centre expressing stress about the cost of housing and short term rental contracts that saw tenants being moved out of their homes just before Christmas as landlords took advantage of short term, high income rental opportunities over the busy summer season.

In some cases families were resorting to living in cars, tents and other poor quality options in order to make ends meet. Business owners were struggling to find accommodation for staff, especially over the summer, the school roll was dropping and it was apparent that there was a trend towards those on lower incomes being forced to leave town to find more affordable housing elsewhere.

Earlier efforts to secure affordable housing had been initiated as far back as 2000 when other committed community members had produced reliable research predicting this trend of rising prices and gentrification impacting on the diversity and economic viability of the town.

The WRAP team realised that it would be necessary to engage district, regional and central
government agencies as well as enlist the support of investors, philanthropists and registered
community housing providers if Raglan was to be successful in building affordable neighbourhoods.

The formation in May 2020 of the Waikato Community Lands Trust now provides a mechanism for land purchased or gifted, to be reserved in perpetuity for the community of Raglan to build homes that could be sold using supported financial arrangements to those in need. Land would remain in
community ownership with home owners paying a small leasehold to contribute to the ongoing
work of WRAPl