Dispossession and Gentrification in the Porirua Redevelopment

An Account of Housing Action Porirua and the Fight for State Housing

Abstract

Porirua East is currently undergoing a state-led gentrification project under the guise of ‘regeneration’. Residents of Porirua East saw what happened in other areas like Glen Innes and, anticipating this threat, formed Housing Action Porirua (HAP). Contextualising the Porirua redevelopment within a broader history of colonisation and racist exploitation, we outline the redevelopment to date and give a history of displacement and dispossession of iwi, and later migrant workers, in Porirua. We chart HAP’s struggle for the community and outline the group’s five demands for a true regeneration that honours te Tiriti o Waitangi, protects the earth, and ensures that no whānau are displaced. We urge that the expansion of state housing is a critical demand for working-class communities which, if guided by te Tiriti, also has the potential to concretely restore mana and rangatiratanga to tangata whenua.