INNOVATION
Affordable Housing
Restoring the Kiwi dream of home ownership
A home is the foundation for a good life. It's the front door you unlock at the end of a long day, the table where your family gathers to eat, and the bedroom your child can paint pink if they want to. Because this is your place.
But for a generation of New Zealanders, that foundation is out of reach. The average house now costs seven times the median household income - meaning 60% of Kiwis under 40 don't own a home.
It’s time to make the Kiwi dream of home ownership possible again.
Opportunity's Affordable Housing policy shifts the focus of housing back to people, by focussing on three pillars - faster build times, better quality homes and better financing for affordable housing.
Because in New Zealand, everyone should have a home.
Every child deserves a warm, dry bedroom. That shouldn't be a luxury in New Zealand.
THREE PILLARS FOR AFFORDABLE HOMES:
Build homes faster
Over 1,000 different planning zones and slow, unpredictable council approvals are holding back better, faster building methods. Opportunity will:
- Replace the current maze with 10 simple, nationally consistent planning zones, cutting red tape while still protecting farmland, heritage buildings and nature reserves.
- Create a national pre-approval system for proven prefabricated and modular building methods to cut council approval times.
- Update housing laws to make it easier to build a wider mix of homes, from co-housing and papakāinga to multi-generational homes.
Build better homes
One in five Kiwis live in cold, damp, mouldy homes. That's driving thousands of preventable child hospital visits and an estimated 1,600 winter deaths a year. Opportunity will:
- Expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme to cover eligible rentals, and extend it to double glazing, solar and electrification, with low-interest loans available through the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme.
- Refund GST to councils on new builds that meet strong environmental standards, to fund local infrastructure and community housing.
- Raise the minimum standards for rental properties under the Healthy Homes Standards.
- Shift the Building Code from box-ticking to real performance, so homes are healthy and energy-efficient, and new builds get wired for EV charging and solar.
Build more affordable homes
Tight lending conditions push developers out of business and skilled workers overseas. To streamline affordable housing financing, Opportunity will:
- Direct Kāinga Ora to build the mix of housing each region actually needs, so smaller towns can clear their waitlists.
- Give councils, Community Housing Providers, iwi and trusted developers direct access to low-cost government finance when they deliver affordable or social housing.
- Let landowners defer the land value tax for up to two years while their land is under development.
Let’s stop treating houses as investment vehicles. Let’s start making them places to live again.
