Prefabs: The future of NZ housing
The success of the Government’s Kiwibuild plan will require New Zealand to embrace factory-made homes that can be trucked in pieces to building sites and erected in a matter of days.
On Thursday, Prefab NZ, an industry association of housing prefabricators, will release a report into the industry’s capacity to turn out houses for Kiwibuild.
It will also launch a nationwide competition seeking a design for a tiny one to two-bedroom house plan that could be ‘‘pre-consented’’ by local authorities. Homeowners with big enough gardens could simply parachute the structures onto their land.
The tiny house would be called ‘‘The Snug’’, said Pamela Bell, Prefab NZ’s chief executive.
Bell would not share the report’s detailed conclusions, but said that for prefabrication to achieve scale under Kiwibuild, the Government would have to look at measures to give prefab companies the confidence to invest.
This could include low interest or no-interest loans, as well as guarantees of volumes so they could plan their investment in new factories.
The Government was elected on a platform of poverty reduction and delivering affordable housing, but the opposition National Party has questioned its ability to build houses quickly, citing an MBIE report warning that it will take years to ramp up construction.
But Bell said the estimates were based on the traditional method of building, not factory-made homes assembled on site far more rapidly.
Gary Caulfield, chief executive of XLam, a high-tech prefabricator based in Nelson, said guarantees of volume were needed for companies to invest in expanding their manufacturing capacity.
XLam’s cross laminated timber (CLT) panels were already used in Housing New Zealand new builds, but the country was lagging the rest of the world in adopting more efficient, and higher-quality building methods, he said.
‘‘Though New Zealand is behind Europe in the use of cross laminated timber (CLT), one significant advantage we already have is the type of wood we use in construction – radiata pine and Douglas fir – compared with the spruce that is widespread in Europe, which has properties that make it difficult to treat.
‘‘There is also, given our wellestablished forestry sector, no difficulty in expanding the production base for CLT from the running start we already have, which would lend a time and cost boost to the construction industry that is tasked with pushing forward the massive housing programme.’’
Fletcher Residential, the homebuilding arm of NZX-listed Fletcher Building, is also eyeing the opportunities for its prefab business.
Bell said tiny homes were part of the housing solution, and expected architects and designers would contribute ideas.
More one and two-bedroom houses were needed, both for youngsters starting out in life, as well as older people looking for smaller dwellings.
Bell said CRESA, the Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment, estimated that as many as 180,000 homes could be made quickly on existing back yards.