James (Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri) is a Licensed Cadastral Surveyor and PhD candidate at the University of Otago. After working on a range of planning, subdivision and land development projects in Waikato, he returned to the School of Surveying in Dunedin to research alternative housing development models. His PhD project is part of the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities research programme and looks at critical success factors of cohousing and urban papakāinga. His teaching and research interests include the perceptions and lived realities of residents in urban papakāinga and cohousing communities, the links between transport mode shift/shared mobility and social wellbeing, and encouraging graduate student success.
James also has a keen interest in research methods and how research is done.
His recent research” Kaupapakāinga: The potential for Māori cohousing” can be found here.