400 KiwiBuild homes on the way
Four hundred KiwiBuild homes will be built as part of a large Government housing development in Northcote, Auckland.
The redevelopment of Housing NZ land begun by the last government will feature 1200 new homes – with 400 state homes, 400 KiwiBuild homes, and 400 market-priced homes.
Housing Minister Phil Twyford announced the development at a briefing about his KiwiBuild policy to build 100,000 homes over 10 years.
He expects ‘‘the first’’ of the homes to be completed in 2019, but the wider development would take years.
Twyford said he already had eight more large-scale projects in the pipeline.
He was comfortable with the fact some of the KiwiBuild houses were being built as part of developments begun by the last government.
‘‘We’re in the business of building more houses. We aren’t going to not build houses because the last government talked about building them,’’ Twyford said.
KiwiBuild houses in Auckland will have a price cap of $650,000 for three-bedroom homes and $600,000 for two-bedroom homes.
The houses will be balloted to first home buyers using an eligibility system to be announced soon.
Twyford said he was taking the exact eligibility criteria to Cabinet on Monday. National’s housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said the Northcote announcement was another ‘‘desperate’’ rebrand of a project her government began.
‘‘People aren’t stupid. If they live in the area and see houses already being built, and then Phil Twyford coming around and sticking a KiwiBuild sticker on it, it isn’t going to make a bit of difference,’’ Collins said.
Collins was very interested in what criteria Twyford would set for buyers.
KiwiBuild is expected to cost about $2 billion, with all the homes being sold at cost by the Government.