A ceremony was held yesterday by All Saints' Anglican Church North Dunedin in Cumberland St, where parish flats are to be demolished this month.
They will make way for a temporary building housing University of Otago students while residential hall Selwyn College is redeveloped.
Dunedin North Anglican parish vicar the Rev Canon Michael Wallace said Selwyn College had rented one of four parish flats at the Cumberland St site for more than a decade.
Selwyn College asked the church if more students could be housed there while the college was redeveloped.
The parish agreed and a pre-fabricated building would cater for up to 14 students from next year.
The parish hoped to build 10 units for social housing at the site once the temporary building was no longer needed, he said.
The parish built the flats in the 1970s to house the elderly and the Salvation Army had used them in recent years for urgent accommodation, he said.
The site was once the home of prominent gold-dredger and Chinese leader Choie Sew Hoy and his family in the 19th century.
It was known as Canton Villa when the Sew Hoys lived there and was a meeting place for the Chinese community, Mr Wallace said.
He recalled Choie Sew Hoy had witnessed a fire at the vicarage in 1887 and he provided firefighters with refreshments.
The house was owned by the Sew Hoys from 1875 and sold by the estate in 1913.
It was demolished about 1976 to make way for the flats.
Yesterday’s ceremony honoured the past and pointed to future plans.
