Kawerau District Council is still wavering over whether to continue marketing potentially asbestos-contaminated sections in its Central Cove subdivision.

On May 31, the council stopped marketing the properties through its building partners, Generation Homes, until a decision was made around the possible establishment of an asbestos disposal site in Kawerau, which would have cut the cost of disposing of the contaminated material.

Then, at a meeting on June 28, it voted to recommence marketing of some sections that were least likely to contain asbestos contaminated materials, as Generation Homes was keen to target first home buyers able to meet criteria for Government grants, which had recently had an increase in house price cap.

A report by finance and corporate services general manager Peter Christophers received by council at a meeting on Tuesday, said, 'Generation Homes has been requested not to sell any more sections until further information is available”.

It said contaminated material had been found on nine lots to date and council staff had been working with the contractor to remove this material.

Out of the 31 sections in the development, 19 have been sold and 12 remain.

The council has spent more than $700,000 on safe removal and disposal of asbestos contaminated waste on seven of the sections so far.

Communications manager Tania Humberstone said a housing development working party, made up of councillors and staff, had visited the site last week and received further advice.

'The advice now is that we are going to do some sampling of all the sites. They'll dig test boreholes on each site and take a sample from that. It's still not failsafe, but we're hoping we'll have a better idea after that so we can get them back on the market as quickly as we can.”

-Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air