The Government is working with offsite manufacturing companies to ramp up production of KiwiBuild homes.
Together, they've been identifying opportunities to "innovate, scale-up, and improve" the productivity of New Zealand's building and construction capacity.
- KiwiBuild promise may rely on prefabs - Phil Twyford
- 'Overly ambitious' 100,000 houses in 10 years promise dropped, shared ownership schemes in
- 'This is their last chance': First home buyer's message over KiwiBuild reset
"We need to do even more to tackle the housing shortage. We need to find new ways to get houses built more quickly and offsite manufacturing is one of the ways we will do this," says Housing Minister Megan Woods.
"Offsite manufacturing has the potential to transform the building sector, and drive innovative ways to build homes at lower cost, and in faster timeframes.
"It can significantly change the way we build homes because builders won't have to contend with external elements like the weather."
Housing New Zealand says the benefits of offsite manufacturing include:
- Offside assembly of a building can happen simultaneously with on-site and civils works
- A factory build environment can reduce defects so less time is spent on fix-ups
- Familiarisation with the building techniques and repetition leads to faster construction
- Less time is lost due to bad weather
"The scale of the KiwiBuild programme, especially when aligned with the other arms of the Government's build programme creates a fantastic opportunity to supercharge the use of offsite manufacturing in New Zealand," Woods says.
"The demand these programmes create has the potential for the construction and development industry to make confident investments in their people and new technology.
"It could play an important role in smoothing out the 'boom-bust' cycle that has plagued the sector in the past, and help prevent another housing shortage emerging in the future."
Newshub.
