Next step is to review submitted proposals, says minister
The government has announced it has received almost 100 proposals from developers in response to its KiwiBuild Buying off the Plans tender.
According to Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford, the government’s early market testing indicated healthy feedback. However, he said that they did not envision this level of interest.
“It shows that the people who actually know how to build the homes this country so desperately needs are right behind KiwiBuild,” Twyford said.
The Buying off the Plans initiative is one of four ways the government proposed to build modest starter KiwiBuild homes for families.
The minister explained that developers are commonly challenged by the need to sell a significant proportion of dwellings off the plans in order to secure funding for construction, which means that developments can sometimes stall or be shelved.
“By underwriting or pre-purchasing homes in a proposed development, the government can provide developers the certainty and backing they need to proceed,” he stated. “In return, we’re accelerating the speed of these developments and ensuring they offer more affordable housing, so more first-home buyers can get onto the property ladder.”
Twyford said the next step would be to evaluate all the proposals and advise which ones were most suitable to progress to commercial negotiation.
“While it’s unlikely that all 100 proposals will proceed, I want to thank all the developers who clearly put a significant amount of effort into preparing these detailed proposals and still back the Kiwi dream of affordable housing,” Twyford said.
