Government’s plans for housing

This Issue This is a part of the Changes ahead feature

, Build 168

The Hon Phil Twyford, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, tells Build about ways the government is going to change the housing sector, including the addition of a stand-alone ministry.

MAKING HOUSES more affordable and our cities more liveable are two of the biggest challenges facing our government. To achieve this, we have a bold and comprehensive plan to reform our housing sector.

To focus government efforts and end the current fragmented approach caused by multiple government agencies being involved in the sector, a new stand-alone ministry is being set up. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will open its doors on 1 October.

A wide range of objectives

Our government’s ambitious housing and urban development programme has a wide range of objectives that also include:

  • ending homelessness
  • building more affordable homes through KiwiBuild
  • making lives better for renters by reforming tenancy laws and setting minimum standards for healthy homes
  • encouraging growth in our urban centres to create thriving communities
  • modernising and building more public housing.

The government is also committed to working with hapū, iwi and Māori groups to ensure that Māori have fair and equal access to homes and opportunities for home ownership.

Winter 2018 tackling homelessness

Current government initiatives, such as the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) Winter 2018 initiative, have made available more than 1,000 extra transitional, public and permanent housing placements in the internationally acclaimed Housing First programme. This has shown the benefit of close collaboration and coming together for a common purpose. The Winter 2018 initiative has made available nearly 600 public housing tenancies and 440 transitional housing places, and three households have been placed in permanent housing through Housing First.

This could not have been achieved without the combined efforts of the entire housing sector, specifically MSD, Housing New Zealand and community and transitional housing providers.

Improving conditions for renters

Other government initiatives, such as those focused on improving the lives of renters, will be developed by the new Ministry. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has been leading the work on rebalancing the relationships between landlords and tenants and making renting more stable and secure.

MBIE will do this through pending reforms to residential tenancy laws, which are expected to be law in 2019. It is also working to develop minimum standards to ensure rental homes are healthy, warm and dry through the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act. Landlords will be required to make any new tenanted property properly insulated and contain a heating source before 1 July 2024.

Work in these areas reflects that, because housing has become more unaffordable and home ownership has declined, renting is becoming a life-long reality for more New Zealanders.

Ministry will lead and coordinate

The new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will bring together policy expertise and have a leadership role across the system to coordinate building housing projects and large-scale urban developments.

It will also be the monitoring agency for the Housing New Zealand and government’s proposed new urban development authority – the Housing Commission.

Once fully operational, the role of the Ministry will be to provide joined-up strategic advice on the full housing continuum, including responding to homelessness, ensuring affordable, warm, safe and dry rental homes in the private and public market and the appropriate support for first-home buyers.

It will lead the design, implementation and review of housing strategies and direction. The new Ministry will provide the government with advice on the social implications of housing policy settings and engage with the social sector as the lead agency for tackling homelessness.

Urban development strategies to improve cities

The Ministry will lead the design, implementation and review of urban development strategies to ensure the spatial planning and provision of infrastructure and services lifts the performance of our cities so they improve the wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

A Specific Purpose Board of chief executives led by the new Ministry will drive collective accountability for implementing the government’s housing and urban development agenda.

Some functions will move agencies

Initially, the Ministry will be set up by moving functions across from existing agencies. They are:

  • the MBIE functions for housing and urban development policy, the KiwiBuild Unit and the Community Housing Regulatory Authority
  • the MSD functions for emergency, transitional and public housing
  • the Treasury functions for overseeing the monitoring of Housing New Zealand and the Tāmaki Regeneration Company
  • the provider-facing purchaser role for emergency, transitional and public housing – the Housing group from MSD.

The KiwiBuild Unit will initially operate from within the new Ministry. In the first year, they will build 1,000 KiwiBuild homes, with the full ramp-up of construction reaching 5,000 homes by June 2020 and 10,000 homes by June 2021.

However, its eventual home is likely to be the proposed urban development authority, which will drive new, large-scale, complex urban development projects and create the conditions to respond to urban growth, bring down the cost of urban land and housing and support thriving communities.

The changes will not affect where people go for help with housing. MSD will continue to assess people’s need for housing support and manage the public housing register.

Further decisions to move other government housing and urban development-related functions to the new Ministry may happen over time, pending Cabinet decisions later in 2018. Phil Twyford will be lead minister

The Ministry will be led by a new Chief Executive. Applications for this position closed in early August 2018. The Ministry will also have the same ministerial oversight as exists now with Minister Phil Twyford as the lead minister.

The new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will help the government to build much-needed affordable housing and create modern and liveable cities ready for the future.

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