Kiwibuild has been revealed as a rort by National housing spokeswoman Judith Collins, who has called it “a welfare scheme for property developers”. She has pointed out that more than half of the homes built since the policy started were already underway before they were added to the programme.
[…] Judith Collins said this showed how little KiwiBuild was actually doing to add to New Zealand’s housing stock.
[…] In a written question to Twyford, Collins asked how many of the so-far completed KiwiBuild homes were not under construction before they were contracted to KiwiBuild.
In response to the question, Twyford said 33 of the 74 KiwiBuild homes that were reported as being complete, as of March 11, were not under construction before they were associated with KiwiBuild.
In other words, 41 houses ? or 55 per cent ? were already under construction before they became part of the programme.
“So far, more than half of the KiwiBuild houses were started before the Minister approved underwriting contracts giving guaranteed prices to developers,” Collins said.
“That is not adding to the housing stock to count houses already being built.”
In response to Collins’ written question, he said bringing the houses which are already under construction into the KiwiBuild programme was the last step in what is frequently a months-long process.
“I am not prepared to demand developers put construction on hold while the legal formalities of them joining the KiwiBuild programme are concluded.”
He said that going forward, the Government won’t stop contracting partly completed homes into KiwiBuild.
[…] In January, Twyford and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scrapped the KiwiBuild targets and announced a “recalibration” of the policy.
The Government had previously said it would build 1000 KiwiBuild homes by July 2019, 5000 in 2020, 10,000 the year after, and 12,000 every year after that until 2028.
“[Those] targets have not been a useful way to demonstrate our delivery programme, that’s why the minister is looking at that again,” Ardern said.
Excuse me while I hold my sides laughing. Of course they weren’t a useful way to demonstrate their delivery programme. It is very inconvenient to be measured against their targets, as such a measurement would reveal how massively they over promised and under delivered.
[…] Twyford said he would be unveiling the new-look KiwiBuild in a few weeks.
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But he said the recalibration would not include yearly targets, as it had previously.
“We’re committed to the 100,000 over 10 years ? but we won’t be setting a new range of interim targets. […]
A recalibration huh? Pull the other one. What gets measured gets done, and they don’t want to be held accountable. Instead we get offered a ten year target that they will never achieve, as they are not prepared to commit to yearly targets. What a mess.