How the KiwiBuild tracker works

Stuff’s KiwiBuild tracker is designed to be used as a quick window into how the Government’s KiwiBuild policy is going. The Labour-led Government has promised to build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years.

But that doesn’t quite mean 10,000 a year right away, and we’re not measuring them against that – yet.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford has described a ‘‘ramp-up’’ period to get the policy in full swing, with 1000 homes built in the first year, 5000 in the second, and 10,000 in the third – then 12,000 every year after that. Those ‘‘years’’ are financial years, meaning the first one runs from July 1, 2018, through until July 1, 2019.

We’re measuring the Government against those self-set goals.

The Homes Built category looks at the number of homes that have been completed and are either ready to be moved into or already have a family living in them.

Homes under construction counts the number of homes we know are in the process of being built, with some work on the ground started and a set number of homes planned. This means, as of July 2, we included developments like McLennan and Northcote in Auckland – where houses are being built currently – but exclude that city’s Unitec site, as this area is still in the planning stage. We’ll include active sites where the Government is ‘‘buying off the plan’’ once those have been announced too.

Homes target to keep on track is where we measure the Government against its self-set goal. This target changes every day to reflect how many houses the Government should theoretically have built to keep on track for 1000 in a year. To get to that target, the Government needs to build roughly 2.74 homes a day – so every day we add that number of houses then round to the nearest whole number.

Obviously, property development does not work in a straight line, as this calculation does. There is no single site where Government workers are hammering away trying to build close to three homes a day. It’s likely large numbers of homes will suddenly become available on some days, while for weeks the numbers don’t change. But to get to those 1000 homes the Government won’t be able to just scramble hundreds of homes in the last few weeks. You should be able to compare this target and the number of homes under construction and already built to get a good idea of whether they are roughly on schedule.

Finally, days until first deadline simply counts down to July 1, 2019, when that 1000-home deadline is set.