Social Housing Minister Amy Adams announced this month that Auckland will be gaining 34,000 new houses under the Crown Building Project over the next decade.
Broken down, the Crown Building Project will see 8300 old rundown houses in Auckland replaced with around 13,500 newly built social houses and 20,600 new affordable and market homes.
This is the equivalent of three-and-a-half new houses on every street across Auckland.
With the project, the Government is making the most out of the available residential land it owns in the region. The houses will be spread throughout Auckland, in suburbs like Onehunga, Takapuna, Massey, Papakura and Point Chevalier.
These new homes will particularly be beneficial to our most vulnerable families, first-home buyers, and for the wider market.
The project fits into the Government’s wider Social Housing reforms and is in addition to the $2.3 billion assisting 310,000 households with accommodation this year.
New houses will help meet Auckland’s social housing needs and will assist in providing people with a pathway into independent, affordable housing.
At least 20 per cent of the new builds will be affordable housing aimed at first home buyers and will be under the KiwiSaver HomeStart cap of $650,000.
Building 34,000 brand new purpose-built houses is a significant undertaking – it is a substantial redevelopment and construction programme on a scale not seen since the 1950s. The project has been carefully scoped and designed, and is fully funded.
The first phase of the Auckland Housing Programme, which covers the next four years, will cost $2.23b. This will be funded through Housing New Zealand’s balance sheet along with new borrowing of $1.1b approved by the Government as part of the business case.
The second phase will be funded through the market housing development part of the programme, along with rental returns. The Minister has also agreed that Housing New Zealand will retain dividends and proceeds from state house transfers, to help fund the building programme.
Work is already underway – builders are on site and getting stuck in with the project.
Step change in infrastructure needed to support new housing, see page 22
