Build cheaper, ditch the garage

An experienced builder says the first step to more affordable homes is to ditch the garage.

‘‘We’re building 150-squaremetre homes at the moment with a 40-square-metre garage on it. It’s just lost space. It’s insane,’’ said Marshall Bryce, a veteran chippie of more than 25 years.

‘‘They’ve paid the same amount for that area where they’ll park their car when they could’ve had another bedroom or another room.

‘‘It’s a mentality thing where Kiwis think you have to have a garage. You don’t.’’

But that’s not his only idea to get people into homes.

Bryce is completing the final stage of his two-year Master of Business Administration at the University of Waikato, in which he’s developing a business proposal to make it easier for those forced out of the housing market to buy a home. His $35 million Ecovillage concept would see 2000 homes – mostly small semidetached houses – built on 80 hectares of leasehold land 30 minutes outside Hamilton. The development would house about 5000 people and earn the landowners $1.8 million each year.

The village would include a community cafe, medical clinic, community hall, gym and pool facilities. It would house generations of people living alongside each other.

‘‘We’ve lost that small village mentality that we had in New Zealand years ago,’’ Bryce said.

Bryce currently builds 250sqm houses which go for more than $750,000. His calculations show the cost of a two-bedroom, 70sqm home with solar panels, composting toilet and water tank would cost $125,000. A three-bedroom, 100sqm home would be $170,000 and a four-bedroom, 120sqm home would come in at $200,000.

‘‘Most people I talk to now who are my age were brought up in a 100sqm home and it works. They say we were brought up well. There is nothing wrong with that.’’

Bryce said his proposal is a social housing development rather than a commercial one.

‘‘It started off about affordable housing, but the more research I did and the more people I talked to, there is a whole lot more I have to offer.’’

The shortage of trade workers, acquiring land and council consenting loom as impediments, but Bryce hopes he’ll be able to get started on the development in the next two years.

‘‘I see people all the time in need who need housing and it’s completely achievable,’’ Bryce said. ‘‘As a builder, I’ve always wanted to give more people houses and I’ve found a way of doing it, I think.’’