4000 homes to be built in Mt Albert

Sunday, 25 March 2018

NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, accompanied by Housing minister Phil Tywford, announce the purchase by the Government of 29.3 hectares of land currently owned by Unitec in Mount Albert for new housing.

Up to 4000 houses are set to be built in the Auckland suburb of Mt Albert, the Housing and Urban Development Minister has announced.

Land at Unitec's Mt Albert campus will be transferred from the Crown with the intention of building between 3000-4000 homes. Mt Albert is 9km from Auckland's CBD.

Phil Twyford said the development would help ease Auckland's housing crisis.

Mt Albert is the site of a new development that will build a mix of housing on land sold by Unitec.

'Too many Aucklanders are suffering because of the housing crisis. This Government will not sit around while children are living in cars and families are cramped into overcrowd housing.'

The development will be a mix of affordable KiwiBuild homes for first homebuyers, public housing and open market houses.

Government will hire migrant tradies for Kiwibuild**

KiwiBuild is the government's programme set up to tackle the housing crisis. It aims to deliver 100,000 quality, affordable homes for first home buyers over the next decade.

50,000 of the homes will be in Auckland.

Twyford said he wants the Unitec development to be somewhere people put down roots, to live, work, learn and play for generations to come.

Unitec chairman Lee Mathias said the sale of the surplus land will be used for maintenance work and to provide funding for the institute's ongoing development.

'We've enjoyed the campus for 30 years and it will be fantastic to open up the space to others who will make it their home, grow businesses, and create a community.'

The KiwiBuild programme focuses on first home buyers.

National's housing spokesperson Judith Collins said the previous National Government had actually signed off on Unitec's investment plans to consolidate their campus and develop the spare land for housing.

'If Mr Twyford wants to be known as someone that actually adds new housing stock rather than re-badging existing plans he needs to come up with something new. Not just re-hash something that's already happening,' she said.

'The development at Unitec has already been factored into the plans and predictions for housing development in Auckland. All that seems to have happened here is that Mr Twyford wants to use taxpayers' money to subsidise the building and selling of homes that were going to happen anyway.'

Auckland mayor Phil Goff welcomed the government's purchase of the Unitec land.

'The new housing development will deliver new homes badly needed to address Auckland's housing crisis. I particularly welcome that the new housing site will deliver affordable and social, as well as market priced, homes in a central isthmus location.

'We need a transformational programme to tackle the increasing unaffordability of home ownership for many Aucklanders as well as soaring rents and growing homelessness,' he said.

'Council will assist the government wherever it can with planning and building consent needs, and work with government through its development arm, Panuku, and the Mayoral Housing Taskforce, to meet the challenges of increasing the pace and scale of building in Auckland,' Goff said.

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