KiwiBuild opens door to prefab companies
KiwiBuild has opened the door to off-site housing construction to help meet its goal of 100,000 new affordable homes over the next decade.
The head of the Government’s affordable housing programme, Stephen Barclay, said it was putting out an ‘‘invitation to participate’’ (ITP) to the off-site manufacturing industry in addition to the developers it had already lined up.
Off-site manufacturing had long been identified as ‘‘a potential gamechanger’’ for the construction industry in terms of reducing costs, getting houses up quicker and improving their quality, he said.
‘‘There is a real opportunity through KiwiBuild to leverage the procurement power of Government and drive productivity and performance gains in the residential housing sector through appropriate off-site manufacturing housing solutions.’’
In line with the Government’s promise on lowering risk for tenderers, Barclay said the procurement process would be ‘‘less prescriptive’’ than usual and allow for lots of interaction between KiwiBuild and industry players.
‘‘If you combine our approach to this procurement process with the Government’s commitment to share risk and enable delivery, then I think we’ll see this ITP generate some really compelling, innovative, solutions-oriented proposals when it comes to off-site manufacturing, and we welcome that,’’ he said.
PrefabNZ chief executive Pam Bell said the ITP was ‘‘the answer to our prayers for scale’’.
‘‘The prefabrication industry is hindered by three areas. One of them is procurement, one of them is bank finance, and one of them is the building consent system.
‘‘So this is the first one, which is about procurement and scale. Whether it comes through the Government direct, or Housing New Zealand or HLC [Hobsonville Land Company], it doesn’t matter. The thing we’ve been missing to date is the appropriate scale.’’
Scale for a company was 300 to 500 units a year for three to five years, ‘‘because we have to invest in technology, equipment and people’’.
‘‘There’s a huge amount of existing knowledge that is really specific to the New Zealand building code, and specific to our weather.’’
PrefabNZ CEO Pam Bell
Bell said there were about 12 members of her group who could deliver at scale.
In March, the prefab industry estimated it could supply about 7000 housing units a year from 2020, and Bell said that number would be higher now.
Policymakers had shown a lot of interest in overseas manufacturers, but Bell said there was an existing industry in New Zealand, which had only lacked a project of size.
‘‘There’s a huge amount of existing knowledge that is really specific to the New Zealand building code, and specific to our weather.
‘‘So what we would hope is that off-shore expertise is brought in partnership and knowledge exchange,’’ Bell said.
She said it would take any offshore manufacturer time to go through New Zealand’s approval, issuance and compliance pathways ‘‘and as I understand it, that’s currently putting them off. But we are hoping that there are other aspects we can learn from,’’ such as regulation or finance.
It was also important that the KiwiBuild promises upheld by this Government were continued by the next, she said.
National Party leader Simon Bridges had made that promise at a recent construction conference.
The deadline for off-site manufacturing KiwiBuild proposals is November 12.
Shortlisted companies would present to KiwiBuild’s evaluation panel in the first quarter of next year, and speed to market would be a consideration, Barclay said.
KiwiBuild plans to have 1000 homes built by mid-2019, 5000 homes by June 2020, and 10,000 homes by June 2021.