Prime Minister Weekly Column Improving housing supply and affordability is important for New Zealand families and communities, and the National-led Government has a comprehensive plan to tackle the issue. Many New Zealanders are concerned about housing and quite rightly so. It’s a challenge we are facing head on and our plan is delivering results. We’re now in the middle of the biggest building boom New Zealand has ever seen. We’re on track to build 85,000 new houses in this term of Parliament – that’s nearly twice the number of existing houses in all of Dunedin. But we need to press on.
Last week, I announced a new $1 billion housing infrastructure fund, the latest step in the Government’s comprehensive plan to address housing affordability and supply. This fund will accelerate new housing in the high-growth centres where it’s needed most,……. like Christchurch, Queenstown, Tauranga, Hamilton and Auckland. This new one-off contestable fund will focus squarely on financing the roading, water and other important infrastructure needed to support new housing. We’re also considering setting up Urban Development Authorities for specific areas of high housing need. They proved successful in many other countries in speeding up housing development. We’ll have more to say on this later this year. These announcements complement the other work we have underway in our comprehensive housing plan to address supply and affordability.
We’ve created over 200 special housing areas to speed up the development of land for an estimated 70,000 new homes across New Zealand, including 63,000 in Auckland. We’re reforming the Resource Management Act to make it easier to get houses consented and built. We’ve also freed up Crown land in Auckland and Christchurch for over 2,000 homes, with more in the pipeline. And we’re redeveloping Housing New Zealand properties to build around 2,000 new dwellings over the next two years. We’ve tightened rules to ensure people buying and selling property for profit pay their fair share of tax. Our Home Start scheme will help around 90,000 New Zealanders into their first-home over five years, with government grants for couples of up to $20,000 to put towards a deposit for their first home. There are around 40,000 more people working in the construction sector than two years ago and 42,000 apprentices are currently being trained across the country.
On the social housing front, we’re the first Government in New Zealand to directly fund emergency housing places with a $41 million investment in Budget 2016. That will help to provide around 3,000 emergency housing places over a year. We’re also providing a new non-recoverable grant so vulnerable people don’t end up in debt when they’re most in need. There are no quick fixes to the issue of housing affordability and supply, but National’s comprehensive housing plan is delivering results and we are committed to building on this momentum.
