Funding to support 23,000 new homes

The Government is putting $600 million into a a new company to invest in infrastructure for housing developments.

Its first job will be two Auckland projects intended to support 23,300 new homes in the north and south of the city. The body, called Crown Infrastructure Partners, is being formed by re-purposing and renaming Crown Fibre Holdings – the company set up to implement the ultra-fast broadband initiative.

The move comes weeks after the Government announced the recipients of the $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, and indicated more infrastructure spending was in the pipeline.

Several councils were keen to get more of the funding but could not put another loan on their books without hurting their credit rating. Crown Infrastructure Partners will avoid this pitfall by building and owning the infrastructure itself.

‘‘Councils will have the option of buying back the infrastructure at some point in the future,’’ Local Government Minister Anne Tolley said. ‘‘This is all about introducing outside capital to build this infrastructure, so current ratepayers don’t get burdened with all the costs of growth.’’

The Government will invest an initial $600m and will look to get further capital from councils and private investors. The first two projects on the agenda will be the Auckland North and Auckland South, two proposals that Auckland council submitted for the initial Housing Infrastructure Fund.

‘‘These two large projects can provide an additional 5500 homes in Wainui to the north of Auckland, and 17,800 homes across Pukekohe, Paerata and Drury to the south of the city,’’ Tolley said.

The investment in the south of the city would include $172m of new water infrastructure, rail stations at Paerata and Drury West, and $97m of new roads.