Eleven new special housing areas (SHAs) are being set up across Auckland with the potential to provide 1600 new homes.
The announcement was made today by Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown.
They said the new "brownfield areas" would bring the total number of SHAs in Auckland to 97, with a potential yield of 47,000 new homes.
But it remains unclear how many homes have been completed as a result of the Auckland Housing Accord. The latest figures come just days after the Reserve Bank criticised the slow rate of new builds in the super city needed to meet demand as house prices continue to spiral.
The new SHA sites offered a mixture of dwelling types across several different areas in Auckland, where consents will be able to be fast-tracked and a proportion of homes will have to be priced in the 'affordable' range.
"And they mark further progress under the partnership between the Government and the council to improve housing supply and affordability in our largest city."
The Minister and Mayor also released the latest Housing Accord monitoring report - covering the nine months from October 2014 to June 2015 - which they said showed the number of building consents in Auckland was at a 10-year high.
"This report shows the house build rate in Auckland, at 8300 per year, is the fastest in a decade. The rate has grown at over 20 per cent per year since 2012 - the longest and strongest period of growth ever," Dr Smith said.
The Auckland Housing Accord, agreed in October 2013, set a target of 39,000 new sections created and dwellings consented over three years - with 9000 in year one, 13,000 in year two and 17,000 in year three.
Dr Smith said this meant they were running just ahead of target - one year and nine months in - with 19,921 new sections created and dwellings consented, compared to the 18,750 expected at this point.
"We will require ongoing increases in pace, in both section and dwelling consents, to meet future targets," he said.
A spokeswoman for Dr Smith said the accord measured new sections created and dwelling consented.
She said neither the Government nor the council count completed houses. No one counted that, she said.
"There's no official measure of when a house is deemed complete."
The 11 new SHAs announced today are:
• Bute Road, Browns Bay: 0.17 hectares, 49 homes
• Sunnybrae Road, Hillcrest: 2.48 hectares, 100 homes
• College Hill, Ponsonby: 0.24 hectares, 48 homes
• Kingdon Street, Newmarket: 0.12 hectares, 58 homes
• Corner Cornwall Park Avenue and Great South Road, Greenlane: 0.28 hectares, 64 homes
• Layard Street, Avondale: 0.61 hectares, 124 homes
• Kirkbride Road, Mangere: 1.70 hectares, 53 homes
• Pacific Events Centre Drive, Manukau: 9.21 hectares, 900 homes
• James Road, Manurewa: 0.21 hectares, 39 homes
• Great South Road, Manurewa: 0.22 hectares, 24 homes
• Takanini Road, Takanini: 1.36 hectares, 130-175 homes
- By Scott Yeoman of the New Zealand Herald
