The
Construction Sector Accord, a joint commitment between the government and the construction industry, aims to lift the performance and resilience of the sector.
Delivering housing is a complex process. The multiple players in the system need to work together to ensure new housing meets demand and is affordable.
Some fundamental requirements for long-term success include:
- making the right decisions about development location and development sequencing
- lowering house build and operating costs
- improving access to finance
- raising the capacity and capability of the building industry to deliver an appropriate range of housing types
- well designed, quality new developments and housing
- coordinating investment in
infrastructure.
How this can be done
New Zealand's building industry is small-scale and fragmented, and there is a shortage of qualified builders. Local capacity and expertise needs to be strengthened. We also need to attract big development companies from overseas who have expertise in delivering large-scale projects and who will help build local expertise over the medium term.
Auckland needs to learn from and replicate the best overseas construction techniques and be able to use alternative and newly launched products with ease. The aim is to bring the cost of construction down, while also ensuring high-quality, sustainable buildings.
For instance, the level of
prefabrication in our construction industry is largely restricted to components, such as panels and trusses, as opposed to at-scale and wholesale prefabrication occurring in factories with dwellings being 'assembled' on-site. (Visit OffsiteNZ to read more about these construction methods.)
Legislative changes aim to improve the regulatory system to drive greater uptake of new and innovative building components manufactured offsite.
This also requires our building industry to be adaptable, well-coordinated and equipped with sufficient expertise to be able to move away from bespoke houses built largely on-site.
We need to accelerate large-scale quality developments.
This can be done by:
- making it easier to source affordable building materials without compromising quality
- deploying innovative designs at scale
- helping the industry readily adopt modular building techniques or other faster ways of construction
- amalgamating land parcels to allow for at-scale development
- encouraging large-scale overseas development companies to enter the Auckland market.
Related information
