Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith today welcomed the decision by the Hobsonville Land Company (HLC) to bring forward the development of 1000 new homes at Hobsonville Point in Auckland.

“The decision by Hobsonville Land Company to speed up the release of precincts at Buckley B, the Village and the apartment site near the Hobsonville Point Primary School means that more homes will be delivered faster. These homes would not have been available until 2019 on the previous schedule, but they will now come on-stream from 2017 – providing an additional 1000 new homes more quickly to help address Auckland’s urgent housing need,” Dr Smith says.

“I further welcome the Company’s target to deliver a higher proportion of affordably priced homes at the Buckley B and Village precincts. At least twenty per cent of all the homes built at Hobsonville Point are already sold at under $550,000 – at these two sites, the proportion will be 30 per cent.”

Hobsonville is former Defence Force land that is being developed by Housing New Zealand subsidiary Hobsonville Land Company. The first sod for housing was turned in 2002 by the then-Labour Prime Minister but no further work was carried out as the project became mired in planning disputes. The National-led Government revived a housing plan for the land in 2010, and the land was given Special Housing Area status under the new Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act in 2013. Earthworks were consented a week later and now 716 homes and sections have been sold.

The development also includes parks, playgrounds, cycleways, walking tracks, a farmers market and new schools. Last year the Mayor of Auckland and the Prime Minister opened the new ferry terminal and service to downtown Auckland.

HLC chief executive Chris Aiken said that the last twelve months had seen record house sales at Hobsonville Point, with 337 homes sold in the twelve months to the end of May 2015.

“We see strong demand continuing, especially driven by the more affordable end of the market. We are bringing forward the development of Buckley B by around two years and the Village development by one year, while construction of the apartments near the primary school has been accelerated by revising super lot plans and the approach to land release in that block – all of which makes good sense in light of current market conditions,” Mr Aiken says.

“Earthworks on the Buckley B precinct are planned for this coming summer and master planning for the Village precinct will commence immediately. This accelerated development timetable ensures that builders have sufficient land in two to three years’ time to continue momentum. It reflects both the very strong demand and the planning lead time of up to two years between starting a precinct and the first homes being completed,” Mr Aiken says.

So far at Hobsonville Point, around 550 new homes are either under construction or have been completed.

HLC and its development partners have allocated builder-ready land to builders for a further 500 homes in the last stages of the Buckley A precinct, the first stage of the Catalina Precinct and in the Sunderland A precinct; building homes on this land is starting now. HLC also has development partners in place for around another 500 homes in the Sunderland precinct and the second stage of the Catalina Precinct, ready for construction to begin at these sites in mid-2016.

This means that – in addition to the homes already completed or under construction – there are 1000 additional homes in the pipeline in precincts where development is already underway. The initiative announced today is additional to this, and brings the total of homes that are either complete, under construction or in the development pipeline to 2550.

“The Government is focused on increasing the supply of housing in Auckland, and Hobsonville Land Company is at the forefront of this. I commend Mr Aiken and the team at HLC on the successes achieved to date, and look forward to more in the future,” Dr Smith says.

“Hobsonville Point illustrates the type of scale and momentum the Government wants to support, and the type of development that Auckland needs to address its housing supply and affordability challenge.

“We have a wide programme of complementary initiatives in place, including constraining new section development contributions, removing tariffs on building materials, and making record investments in building apprenticeships. Our KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme, which came into effect on 1 April 2015, provides financial assistance to 90,000 first-home buyers. The next key measure is our planned second phase of the Resource Management Act reforms to tackle the long-term issues affecting housing affordability and supply.”