Thursday 4 October 2018

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has welcomed new building consents reaching 12,959 in the year to August 2018 - a record for Auckland eclipsing the record set during the building boom in 2004.

Mayor Phil Goff said, “This is good news for addressing the crisis in housing shortage and affordability in Auckland. Seven years ago we were issuing only about 3,600 consents a year and for years after that building numbers and infrastructure lagged massively behind Auckland’s growth in population.

“Housing shortages forced up house prices which were going up by 15% a year, rents rose faster than inflation and homelessness got worse.

“The Auckland Unitary Plan is playing a significant role, opening up vast areas for new and more intensive housing.

“We are working on ways to find and increase infrastructure build to allow more housing.

“The Government’s new Kiwibuild programme and commitment to an additional thousand extra social housing units a year will both increase building and recognise the need for more emphasis on affordability.

“We are still in catch-up mode and much more remains to be done to get on top of what is one of the biggest problems facing Auckland. However, these numbers show that real progress in the right direction is being made,” Phil Goff said.

ENDS

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