According to Stats NZ, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay have seen their highest number of building consents since 2007. Photo / Paul Taylor
According to Stats NZ, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay have seen their highest number of building consents since 2007. Photo / Paul Taylor
The number of new homes being built in Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay is at its highest number in more than a decade, but the number in Napier is declining.
According to Statistics NZ, the number of building consents issued in the year ending November 2019 in Hastings (369) andCentral Hawke's Bay (71) were the highest recorded since 2007 when it peaked at 384 for Hastings and 77 for CHB.
Wairoa (13) also recorded its highest number of building consents since 2011 when it last peaked at 15.
In Hastings, which has been in the spotlight over its lack of housing during peak tourism and picking season, 369 consents were issued for houses in the November 2019 year, up by 40 on the previous year and more than 80 on 2017.
Wairoa went from eight houses built in 2018 to 13 in 2019.
CHB saw a similar change, nearly doubling the number of building consents in the region from 47 in 2018 to 71 in 2019.
Those numbers are also echoed in the value of those building consents with Wairoa increasing almost three times as much from $2 million in 2018 to $6m in 2019, CHB also almost doubled from $17.5m in 2018 to $30.1m in 2019.
Napier saw a slight decline over the same period with 254 houses built in 2017 to 236 in 2019, a far cry from its last peak of 412 in 2007. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hastings saw a big monetary change increasing almost $43m since November 2017, but only increasing $9m from 2018.
But in the shadow of that is Napier which continues to decline in number of consents built.
This year saw a slight decline over the same period with 245 building consents in 2018 to 236 in 2019.
It's a far cry from its previous peak of 412 in 2007.
A Stats NZ spokesperson said although Napier's number of consents has dropped over the past few years the city has held consistent numbers since its big drop-off in 2008 where it was at 214.
The value of its consents has also increased by almost $9m since 2018, as a result of large scale projects.
The general growing trend in Hawke's Bay follows the same path shown on a national scale with New Zealand residential construction reaching a 45-year high, running at a pace not seen since 1974.
Statistics NZ said a record number of consents were issued for 37,010 new houses in the year to November 2019, "the highest in a year since the mid-1970s. There were 37,919 new homes consented in the year ended September 1974."
The number of new homes consented has been generally increasing since late 2011, coming off lows in 2009 and 2011 when fewer than 14,000 new homes were consented annually, Stats NZ said.
"Nationally, 13 per cent more new homes were consented in the November 2019 year compared with a year ago, reaching 14,866 in Auckland, 4176 in Waikato, and 5310 in Canterbury."
