Kāinga Ora housing in Christchurch. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The country's builders and community housing providers say they are up to the task of fulfilling a rare moment of consensus by Labour, National and the Greens - all pledging to build 1000 state homes a year in Auckland if elected.
National deputy leader Nicola Willis, Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Green co-leader Marama Davidson made the commitment at a debate on Wednesday night.
The Salvation Army was heartened to see the cross-party commitment, but social housing director Greg Foster said 1000 houses is nowhere near enough.
"The waiting list in Auckland is around 8000 families. That has been going up and down each quarter over the last couple of years, but certainly on a trajectory of increasing. We should be doing more actually."
Community Housing Aotearoa chief executive Paul Gilberd. Photo: RNZ / Edward O'Driscoll
Foster said doing only the minimum would only make a small impact on the state housing waiting list.
"But there's also hundreds of families in motels and private rentals. For instance, we are renting hundreds of private-sector homes now for transitional housing where we put families who are in real emergencies. In order to get them out of those transitional housing and the motels, you've got to be building a lot more homes."
Community Housing Aotearoa chief executive Paul Gilberd said building another 1000 state homes was a bit of a stretch, as 800 homes were currently planned per annum.
"But it's a very carefully chosen target by the community groups who have a good grasp of what the situation is, in terms of persistent unmet need in Auckland, and so whilst it's a little bit of a stretch it's actually achievable."
Chris Hipkins, Nicola Willis and Marama Davidson. Photo: RNZ
Gilberd said an inflated state housing waiting list extended to the whole country.
"We have more than 24,000 households on the waiting list, so after 30 years of neglect it's going to take us a long time to catch up."
Certified Builders Association chief executive Malcolm Fleming said the sector could cope and would welcome the work.
"In recent times, their demand and their level of enquiry has started to drop down, more so than the rest of the country, so there is capacity in the system. As they move through and complete homes and renovations that have been undertaken for the last 12 to 18 months, they would certainly welcome demand coming into the system."
He said for the goal of 1000 homes to be met in the first year of a new government, plans and consents would need to be in place at the outset of its first term.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which had oversight of the 2021 - 2024 Public Housing Plan, was developing a plan for 2025.
The ministry worked with Kāinga Ora and the community housing provider sector to determine who will build what and where within those programmes.
