Mayor: Bumper year for housing

He was speaking at an event to mark the start of construction of Brickworks, the city’s latest apartment development, at Hobsonville Point.

Len Brown said 2014 would be a bumper year for building consents.

Approvals are expected for about 7000 new homes in the 2013/14 year, twice the total for 2011/12.

He said:  “It’s clear that we are entering a growth phase for Auckland home building. Over the next few years Aucklanders will see a lot more building activity across the region, with a good mix of apartments, terraced houses and standalone houses.

“This boost in residential construction has been helped by strong economic growth, greater certainty for developers and improvements to the council’s  consenting processes.”

He said 95% of consents are being processed within statutory timeframes.

“I have been really impressed by the work of our consenting teams. Although volumes are much higher than previous years, the building and resource consent teams have continued to perform at 95 per cent at least, of consents processed within statutory timeframes.”

Apartments are becoming a larger proportion of new homes - in December in Auckland consents were granted for 397 new apartments.