KiwiBuild needs you, Twyford tells prefab home builders
Housing Minister Phil Twyford told prefabricated home builders that KiwiBuild can’t be delivered without them.
“This is not some science fiction dream. We can do this, if we have a bit of backbone and pursue the right policies,” Twyford told PrefabNZ’s conference in Auckland.
“KiwiBuild using mass procurement gives us the opportunity to build at scale, with contract work at volume, and with the certainty of multi-year contracts, which will allow firms to invest in the technology, the production processes, and design, and business models, that will transform your industry.”
Pamela Bell, chief executive of PrefabNZ says Kiwibuild cannot work without embracing factory-made prefabricated homes.
“Off-site manufacturing is the disrupter that our construction industry desperately needs,” Twyford said.
“This has been the holy grail of New Zealand residential construction ever since the first Labour government worked with James Fletcher in the 1930s using mass production and standardisation to the building of state houses.”
KiwiBuild could break the cycle of under-building, building in the wrong places, and building the wrong kinds of dwellings, he said.
There was huge, unsatisfied demand for one and two bedroom dwelling, including for retirees, which the market was not delivering, he said.
“Never have we been able to achieve in this country the scale necessary to make that breakthrough, let alone maintain it.”
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