400 affordable homes tagged for Northcote development as KiwiBuild start date looms

Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford. Photo / George Novak

A 1200 house re-development of Housing NZ land in Northcote will include up to 400 KiwiBuild homes for first home buyers, Housing Minister Phil Twyford says.

Twyford said the remaining two-thirds of houses would be an even split of state homes and market-price homes and the first homes were likely to be ready in 2019 although the development as a whole would take several years.

The announcement of the split between affordable KiwiBuild homes, state homes and market-price homes on the development comes as the July 1 date for the official "count" for the KiwiBuild policy looms.

National Party housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said she was underwhelmed by Twyford's announcement on Northcote, describing it as "a blatant rebranding" of National's policy for the same development.

"It is reannouncing something National was working on. That's basically what KiwiBuild now is – taking National [Government] projects and sticking KiwiBuild names on them."

The former National Government announced plans for the 1200 home development in 2016 and tagged up to 400 homes for state housing with the remainder a mixture of affordable and market-value houses. It did not specify what that split would be.

Twyford said the official "count" for the KiwiBuild policy will begin on July 1 and home buyers who are interested will be able to check their eligibility and pre-register on a KiwiBuild website soon after that date.

The first homes at a development in Papakura are expected to be ready from October.

He expected demand to outstrip supply initially and ballots would be held where required.

Overall, the policy is supposed to deliver 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years but it will start slowly with 1000 houses in the first year before building up to 5000 houses in 2019/20 and 12,000 a year from 2022 until 2028.

It will be a mix of the Government's own developments, such as on the Unitec land it has purchased in Mt Albert, and the Government buying homes off the plans being built by private developers and selling them as KiwiBuild homes.

The caps on the costs of KiwiBuild homes in Auckland are $650,000 for a three bedroom house, $600,000 for a two bedroom and $500,000 for a one bedroom. Twyford said the Government hoped it would be able to secure them for less than that in some areas.