Social Housing Minister Amy Adams is putting her stamp on her new portfolio in an attempt to take the high ground from Labour on providing social and affordable housing.
Ms Adams said the 34,000 houses would cost $2.2billion over a four-year programme of which Housing New Zealand would borrow the $1.1billion through the bonds.
The $2.2billion would fund the first stage of the Auckland Housing Programme (AHP) and the second phase would be funded through the sales of houses and land, and rental returns.
Given Housing New Zealand's strong credit rating, a domestic wholesale bond programme was expected to cater for the full AHP financing requirement and represented the lowest cost option, Ms Adams said.
External finding would deliver additional commercial discipline for Housing NZ.
''The AHP will deliver long-term rental returns that enable it to repay the debt required to fund construction.
''Because of Housing NZ's large balance sheet, it is able to borrow privately in a relatively economic manner. It also enables the Crown to commit more of its capital to supporting wider infrastructure, like transport and the Housing Infrastructure Fund.''
Ministers had also agreed Housing NZ would retain dividends and proceeds from state house transfers to help fund the building programme.
Over the next 10 years, the Crown Building Project would deliver about 13,500 newly-built social houses and 26,000 new affordable and market homes, Ms Adams said.
The programme was the equivalent of three and a-half new houses on every street across Auckland.
The houses would be for the most vulnerable families, for first-home buyers and for the wider market.
''These 34,000 new houses are a substantial redevelopment and construction programme on a scale not seen since the 1950s.''
Dunedin South MP Clare Curran has complained recently about state houses lying empty in her electorate while people remain on the waiting list.
Yesterday's announcement by Ms Adams was not a credible response to a country-wide major issue, Ms Curran said yesterday.
''It's a mish-mash of old and new housing programmes. After nine years of denying there's a housing crisis, they have finally acknowledged it but have made a cynical announcement in election year to paper over a crisis gripping the whole nation.
''It does nothing to address the immediate pressing issues in Dunedin of high rents locking many families out of the rental market, sell-offs of state houses with dozens lying empty and on the market and a chronic lack of emergency housing.''
Ms Curran said she had three families into the fifth and sixth weeks in motels with no cooking facilities and a precarious living situation for children who had to keep up a semblance of normality at school.
