State housing tenants who had to move out of a Lower Hutt estate to make way for a $30 million development fear they won't have a shot at renting or owning the properties.
Construction started on Thursday on 150 homes in the suburb of Pomare being built by Housing New Zealand and private developer City Living.
Twenty of the homes will be state housing, another 20 will also be social housing but run by a private provider, while the rest will be sold as affordable housing to low income families.
Former Housing New Zealand tenant Jim Watene says he and many others are disappointed that so few state homes are being rebuilt.
"You know, that's a sore point with the people who used to live here. When it first started off we understood that we had the option of coming back, then somewhere along the line during the kerfuffle that's going on the rules were changed. So there is no hope now of anyone coming back."
