Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Minister for Housing Tama Potaka at today's announcement. Photo: RNZ/Calvin Samuel
The government is making it easier for Community Housing Providers (CHPs) to deliver social housing by making the contracting process more efficient, allowing for more "autonomy, certainty, and flexibility".
The Minister and Associate Minister for Housing, Chris Bishop and Tama Potaka, announced the new Strategic Partnerships in Hamilton on Friday.
They say this will help the government deliver the 1500 social homes it funded in Budget 2024, at the cost of $140 million.
"We are on track to get these much-needed homes delivered by 30 June 2027," Bishop said
Five hundred of those are currently being delivered through projects previously identified by CHPs as potential homes.
"Funding has been approved for 218 places under this pathway, which we are calling 'Maintaining Momentum'," Bishop said.
Photo: RNZ/Calvin Samuel
Under the Maintaining Momentum pathway, contracting has been done on a project-by-project basis, which meant CHP would need to go through the application and approval process three times if it had three developments. It would also then have three separate contracts with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
Bishop said in the short term this was the most efficient way of "getting on with delivering homes".
But to "make contracting more efficient", the government is taking a new approach with "strategic partnerships" he said, which will be used to allocate the majority of the remaining 1000 places.
"Strategic Partnerships represent a more efficient contracting approach, where CHPs will have more autonomy, certainty, and flexibility to deliver social housing."
Under Strategic Partnerships, selected CHPs will be contracted to deliver a set number of homes over a specific period of time.
"This means providers can more flexibly deliver, as long as they meet key objectives and outcomes such as unlocking economies of scale and standardisation, delivering at a quicker pace, and providing good quality, value for money homes in the places they are needed."
Bishop said this will shift the model of funding homes on a "project by project basis" to one that enables CHPs to "spend less time going through approvals processess and more time building homes and supporting their tenants".
Five CHPs have been selected to deliver places under this new model:
- 1. Accessible Properties New Zealand Limited -
- 2. Community of Refuge Trust (CORT)
- 3. Emerge Aotearoa Housing Trust
- 4. Te Āhuru Mōwai Limited Partnership
- 5. The Salvation Army
"They were selected based on their current performance, capability, and capacity, as demonstrated by the social homes they already manage and the quality of the housing developments they have delivered to date."
The partnerships are also intended to be lasting relationships, that can "adapt to housing need and funding availability over time".
Potaka explained the specific places that CHPs have identified for delivery were "aligned with need".
"For example, across maintaining momentum and Strategic Partnerships, 46 percent of places are one-bedroom and 38 percent are two-bedroom, as need across the country is dominated by those requiring smaller homes."
And in terms of location, Potaka said 23 percent of places identified so far were in the Waikato area, 21 percent were in Auckland, 15 percent in Nelson, 14 percent in the Bay of Plenty area, and the other 27 percent were other priority locations.
The first homes are expected to be finished in the first half of this year, with all 1500 places delivered by June 2027.
