KiwiBuild goal of 100k homes is 400 years away

The Government’s former flagship housing policy is so far behind schedule it will take more than 400 years to reach its initial target of 100,000 homes. It had hoped to reach the target in 10 years.

Initially, the Government had been hoping the rate of building would increase over time as

KiwiBuild ramped up, with 1000 homes built in the first year, 5000 in the second, and 10,000 in the third, but the rate of building is slowing; each month in 2020 seeing tiny increases in the number of KiwiBuild homes built.

The number of homes built to date stood at 393 at the end of March, equating to roughly 19 homes built each month since the scheme began in June 2018.

At that rate, it would take 436 years to complete the remaining 99,607 houses that remain from the 100,000 target.

Last year, the Government admitted the project had failed to deliver. Phil Twyford was sacked as housing minister and replaced with Megan Woods.

She ‘‘reset’’ the policy. The 100,000-home target Labour had stuck to until then was ditched. Instead, Woods said a ‘‘significant’’ number of KiwiBuild homes would be built.

The Government also pivoted towards social housing, where it has had considerably more success. It had built 2726 state houses and 470 community houses between June 2018 and March 2020.

Woods also doubled the Government’s house-building efforts in the 2020 budget, pledging to build 8000 new state homes.

National’s incoming housing spokeswoman Nicola Willis said KiwiBuild was ‘‘a broken promise on a colossal scale; it’s the biggest public policy failure in a generation’’.

‘‘KiwiBuild has become a byword for incompetence,’’ she said.

Labour raised voters’ hopes with an undeliverable policy, she said. ‘‘Labour knowingly raised people’s hopes; those hopes are now dashed. The question is did they ever have a plan to deliver?’’

Woods said the housing target no longer stood.

‘‘When I reset KiwiBuild, I made clear that we would not chase targets that provided perverse incentives such as purchasing housing in a location and/or configuration not suited to KiwiBuild buyers,’’ Woods said.

‘‘Building houses in places and of the type that KiwiBuild buyers want is my priority.’’

Woods said the Government remained committed to KiwiBuild.

‘‘This Government is committed to doing what it can to ensure New Zealanders have warm, dry affordable housing. KiwiBuild is an important lever for providing opportunities to first-home buyers and ‘second-chance’ home buyers. It is also an important lever to invigorate the construction sector in a post Covid-19 environment.’’

The timeframe for completion is so long that it’s fair to say the property market will be in a very different shape by the time the programme is finished. By way of comparison, 436 years ago, Queen Elizabeth I sat on the throne of England. William Shakespeare, though alive, had yet to have his first play performed.

In terms of the property market, England had not yet begun its colonisation of the Americas, where tracts of land were taken through bloody colonisation, depressing the price of land.

There’s no telling what similar changes are in store for land prices in the next 436 years.

It’s conceivable that humans may have begun terraforming the surfaces of the Moon or Mars, freeing up land and depressing property prices. In that situation, it is unlikely governments of future centuries will continue with the KiwiBuild scheme.

‘‘KiwiBuild has become a byword for incompetence.’’

Nicola Willis