Phil Twyford
Housing Spokesperson

27 June 2014

Labour announces Canterbury Housing kick-start

Labour has announced a package of commitments to kick start the Canterbury housing recovery and fill the shortage of affordable housing.

Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford said Labour will fix the housing crisis by building 10,000 affordable homes much more quickly than is currently happening.

“Failure to get the residential rebuild going fast enough has allowed a severe and prolonged housing shortage to develop. It is holding back the speed of the recovery.

“Labour will take a more hands-on approach. We will roll up our sleeves and actually build houses. The current Government’s approach has been to hope a broken market will fix itself. The fact that fewer than 1000 of the 12-15,000 houses needed have been built shows that approach has failed.

“We would earmark the first 3000 houses built for affordable rental housing as a way of immediately making rents more affordable. The homes would be retained as rentals until the crisis has been fixed, and then sold to first home buyers.

“In the first six months in Government we will also build 400 new homes to be used as temporary emergency housing for families in need. Too many people in Canterbury have fallen through the cracks and are in their fourth winter in substandard or overcrowded housing. We will provide secure, warm, dry housing and support to help them find longer- term affordable accommodation.

“We will also fix the anomaly that has denied Cantabrians the same level of accommodation supplement that people in Auckland get when they are paying the same rent. This will increase the maximum payment by $35-50 a week.

“We will kick-start the redevelopment of the city centre, as well as suburban and town centres across Canterbury. We will work with the Council, developers and the community to build vibrant medium density centres with affordable housing, green space and high urban design standards,” Phil Twyford said.

For more detail:
www.labour.org.nz/canterburyhousing
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1406/Housing_at_the_heart_of_the_rebuild.pdf

ENDS

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