Hon Phil Twyford

Minister of Housing and Urban Development
MEDIA STATEMENT

13 June 2018

Almost 100 proposals have been received from developers in response to the Government’s KiwiBuild Buying off the Plans tender, says Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford.

“Our early market testing indicated we would get a healthy response but I did not envision this level of interest. It shows that the people who actually know how to build the homes this country so desperately needs are right behind KiwiBuild,” Phil Twyford said.

The Buying off the Plans initiative is one of four ways the Government will build modest starter KiwiBuild homes for families.

“A common challenge faced by developers is the need to sell a significant proportion of dwellings off the plans in order to secure funding for construction, which means that developments can sometimes stall or be shelved.

“By underwriting or pre-purchasing homes in a proposed development, the Government can provide developers the certainty and backing they need to proceed. In return, we’re accelerating the speed of these developments and ensuring they offer more affordable housing, so more first-home buyers can get onto the property ladder.

Phil Twyford said the next step would be for the KiwiBuild Unit to evaluate all the proposals and advise which ones were suitable to progress to commercial negotiation.

“While it’s unlikely that all 100 proposals will proceed, I want to thank all the developers who clearly put a significant amount of effort into preparing these detailed proposals and still back the Kiwi dream of affordable housing,” Phil Twyford said.

Editors’ note:

As well as buying off the plans, KiwiBuild homes will also be built by:
• Converting existing Crown land and purchasing additional land from the private market (under the Land for Housing programme), which will be on-sold to development partners who commit to delivering KiwiBuild homes.
• Identifying and leveraging opportunities to deliver KiwiBuild homes through existing Government-led housing initiatives, such as those being undertaken by Housing New Zealand (e.g. McLennan development)
• Doing the groundwork to enable new urban development authority (once established) to undertake major urban redevelopment projects in partnership with iwi, councils and the private sector. Investigations into the first large-scale projects are underway.

ends

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