East Auckland businesses want fair shot at major community rebuild

A Tongan construction company is pushing for a fair cut of building contracts in East Auckland, an area where more than 10,000 homes are set to be built in the next 20 years.

Mapa Tuipulotu owns Building Brothers Construction. It's a big family affair. Two other siblings are owners, a number of other brothers work for it (there are eight brothers in total) and then there are the wives who are also significant players.

Building Brothers has worked at scale in the South Island, Waikato and across Auckland. But there's only one place the company wants to be building.

"Home. home. The way we see it there's no better place for us to see it than home," Tuipulotu said.

"We're not a big company like Fletchers and that but what we produce workwise, we can definitely do the work."

Home is Glen Innes, Pt England and Panmure, where eight Tuipolotu brothers were raised.

And it's also where the government evicted largely Māori and Pacific state housing tenants to enable intensification to occur nearly a decade ago.

Just off Glen Innes' main drag terrace homes are going up quickly, all of the activity overseen by the Tamaki Regeneration Comany, a Crown and Council owned venture which is developing 900 hectares for an expected populaion growth of 56,000 by 2043.

Kāinga Ora awards the contracts.

But Tuipolotu believes his company can't get a fair shot.

And that's a view echoed by Tyrone Tangata-Makiri who runs a local business innovation hub aiming to connect Māori and Pacific businesses with Tamaki Regeneration Company's contracts.

"For a long time now we haven't had that opportunity and I really want to put it out there - we're not looking for a hand out, we just want to know the process and to have a fair shot at the process."

He's watched families be moved on by evictions as well as rising market forces.

"It's hard to deny that this has been a gentrification process."

Still, he says he's optimistic about change for local entrepreneurs because of a positive and developing relationship with TRC.

TRC chief executive Shelley Katae says she's listening and along with Kāinga Ora has met with Building Brothers.

"We love the the work that Mapa, Fou and George Tuipulotu are doing. They've come a long way from humble beginnings in Glen Innes. We will continue to actively look for opportunities to work with the brothers going forward," she said.

The organisation now ready to "shift the dial and change the system."

Kāinga Ora's Urban Development and Delivery General Manager Mark Fraser said work was under way to explore how the firm might be able to use their expertise in Tamaki.