Nerin Square now features seven homes, with 20 more - comprising four different architectural designs - to be built over the next year, along with a child-care centre and cafe.
It is the first comprehensive mixed-tenure development of its kind in the Queenstown Lakes district and yesterday also marked the official opening of the first home in the trust's "rent saver programme".
Trust chairman David Cole said the programme was aimed at those who struggled to find enough money for a deposit on a house.
"If they save $50 a week over five years, at the end of the five years they will have $25,000, which is the deposit on their house.
"Then they can buy the house they've been renting under the shared ownership programme."
Under the shared ownership programme the housing trust take a 30% equity in the houses, making it more affordable for first-time owners.
However, Mr Cole said yesterday was also about "throwing down the gauntlet" when it came to affordable housing.
"We're trying to dispel this myth affordable housing is ugly, cheap and a compromise in quality.
"We still get people in the community saying 'we don't want affordable housing where we are'.
"It's nothing about the quality - it's all about the way we make these houses affordable."
He told the invited crowd, comprising councillors, council chief executive Debra Lawson, deputy chief executive Stewart Burns, trustees, Mr Heatley and residents there was no doubt Nerin Square would become a "very special place to live".
After Mr Heatley invited the first tenant in the rent saver programme, Whitney Wanous, to cut the ribbon to her new home, which she will move in to with her partner, Hayden Smith, and their son Maddon (2) next weekend, deputy mayor Lyal Cocks said it was a significant milestone for the district.
"We are quite unique from the rest of the country - it's an expensive place to live, but it's also a wonderful place to live.
"We [the council] support the housing trust and we will continue to do so."
