The Government is touting prefab houses as a solution to KiwiBuild, but manufacturers say that solution's being stymied by building-consent hold-ups.
AdBuild produces one home every two days at its factory in Lower Hutt.
Ten are heading to the Napier suburb of Maraenui, where they'll be sold for around $380,000.
- KiwiBuild production ramping up through offsite manufacturing
- KiwiBuild reset: 'Overly ambitious' 100,000 houses in 10 years promise dropped, shared ownership schemes in
- Government spends $8m on unwanted KiwiBuild homes
They're Kiwibuild's first fully offsite manufactured homes (OSM).
"OSM will help transform the building and housing sector," says Housing Minister Megan Woods.
She hopes the homes might also transform KiwiBuild.
"This is an important part of how it is that we will build as many houses as we can, as quickly as we can."
But it could be quicker - AdBuild's business manager Rick Bell says they're hindered by the building-consent process.
"That's the biggest hurdle for us," he says.
They can build a house in just 20 days - but face major delays when dealing with local councils.
"One council having one thing one way and another council having it documented a different way," says Bell.
He says there needs to be a more standardised process across the country if prefab homes really are going to be a housing solution.
Woods says the Government is looking at making the consent process easier, as part of changes to our building laws.
But the Opposition argues it should have focused on offsite manufacturing a long time ago.
"It's been such a disaster, they should have been into this ages ago because it is one of the solutions for KiwiBuild," says Andrew Bayly, National's building and construction spokesperson.
The Government will soon announce a shortlist of other offsite manufacturers to become part of that KiwiBuild solution.
Newshub.
