Ockham

Called Toi, the first block is a green, brick-clad, seven-storey building housing 65 units with up to three bedrooms, underpinned by commercial spaces on the ground floor. Prices start from $495,000 to $885,000.

It’s the brainchild of Ockham, the Kiwi residential apartment developer which has become a feature of New Zealand’s building landscape. Co-founder Mark Todd says the project has a unique flavour which he predicts will see it featured in “international magazines”.

Ockham has worked closely with Hauraki iwi collective Marutūāhu and Todd says the land, returned to Marutūāhu under the Treaty of Waitangi, will become a planned, green suburb as it hosts more than 3,000 apartments in the next two decades: Maungārongo.

Innovation enabling low-carbon living

It'll stand out because it'll have limited access and parking for cars, while being close to public transport hubs. Todd says: “It’s modelled on quality, compact European city centres. The roading network is very limited but the walking and cycling network through those apartments is second to none.

Sustainability is an important focus in choice of construction materials, with facades made of brick or pre-cast concrete for durability and low maintenance. There are also innovative German hot water systems that output 7.5kW for every 1KW of energy input. Rainwater harvesting will be a feature of every building, along with over-spec insulation.

Maungārongo will also stand out because of its design: “When it turns up in international magazines in 10 years’ time, you'll be able to see it’s unique to New Zealand. It’s distinctly Māori in its design. It's in everything you touch and see and even smell as you walk through the buildings, street ways, lanes and plantings. It's a very detailed design response in sync with Māori design frameworks.”

A partnership built on shared purpose

Todd says that without Kiwibank, Maungārongo would not exist and — more to the point — neither would Ockham.

In 2009 Todd, a builder and developer, and Benjamin Preston, who was exiting a high flying merchant banking career, approached us for additional finance.

The world was just coming out of the global financial crisis and no one else was lending to such companies, Todd says. We did and, using that first Kiwibank investment and teaming up with architect Tania Wong 13 years ago, Ockham has grown to the point it has now finished more than 14 apartment blocks, large and small.

Over the past two years, Ockham has returned to its roots by involving Kiwibank again in three of their projects “but without Kiwibank being in the market back then, we literally could not have started off on residential,” says Todd.

From those first apartments back in 2009, the company grew from a medium-sized business to a leading New Zealand vertically-integrated business. It's now able to deliver major projects like the 40 buildings and 3,000 apartments about to get under way in Point Chevalier — all in a sustainable way.