4. KiwiBuild—Unitec DevelopmentHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentKiwiBuild—Unitec Development4. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many houses is he planning to build on the Unitec site and how many of them will be KiwiBuild houses?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I'm advised that Unitec carried out its own master planning on the site that indicated a potential for around 2675 residential units. With a moderate increase in density working with development partners and with better use of contemporary housing typologies including low-rise apartments we are confident that between 3000 and 4000 residential units can be comfortably built at Unitec while retaining the site's amenity value for residents. I anticipate that up to 40 percent of these dwellings will be KiwiBuild affordable homes.Hon Judith Collins: What will be the average floor size of dwellings on the Unitec site and will there be a difference in the average size between KiwiBuild State houses and private homes?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well it's far too early to say with precision but there has been a lot of misinformation and scaremongering about the effects of increasing density in Auckland property developments. Hobsonville Point developed under the past Government will be the guide for the master planning of the Unitec—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He got asked a question about the floorplate for each of these and now he's talking about the brilliant former housing initiative by the previous Government at Hobsonville. It's really quite a way off the point.SPEAKER: Yes and that is a matter for me to judge. I was coming to the same conclusion as the member was and I think we could move on to another supplementary.Hon Judith Collins: What is his expectation of the minimum floor area per person that a KiwiBuild dwelling must have?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well I would note that the unitary plan approved by Auckland Council in mid-2016 set minimum floor sizes of 30 square metres for studio dwellings and 45 square metres for one or more bedroom dwellings. I'm aware of suggestions that the minimum ceiling height bedroom size or even the width of the front door could be reduced in order to get more dwellings on to a building site on the basis that people have to live somewhere and they can choose to live in something that's too small. Our Government will not be following that absurd suggestion by former finance Minister Bill English.Michael Wood: Why has the Government embarked on the KiwiBuild programme?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: KiwiBuild—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I hope I haven't anticipated your reaction one more time but a question like this—this is about a specific building site—Unitec—and all the questions have related to the site and the intention to build on that site. To then go into a question that is of a philosophical nature—Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Philosophical!Hon Gerry Brownlee: Difficult to answer. Difficult to answer I agree—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! Order!Hon Gerry Brownlee: —but none the less it's quite wide of the original question.SPEAKER: It is not wide; it's actually included in the last line of the substantive question. If the member doesn't want his colleague to talk about KiwiBuild houses it should be left out of the question.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: KiwiBuild is a direct intervention in response to the failure of the market to provide enough affordable homes to meet demand. I'm advised that there is a shortfall of around 45000 homes in Auckland that has built up over the last six years and that this shortfall is growing by around 7000 homes per year meaning that the shortfall could double in the next six years unless things change. The Government—SPEAKER: Order! That's enough. Thank you.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether or not any of these units will go for as low as $25000 of which there is the news in the last 24 hours—news of units being sold in Auckland for as low as that because they are rotten defective and failed services as a result of having been built by the National Party?SPEAKER: Order! I think just like the Minister doesn't build houses I don't think the National Party did either.Hon Judith Collins: So who is going to build all of these extra houses that the Minister is promising at Unitec? Where are the carpenters the plumbers and the electricians coming from?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We have a strategy in place to train up the workforce and aggressively recruit skilled tradespeople to build these houses—something that the former Government should've been doing for the last nine years.Hon Judith Collins: When the Minister has advised the media that he is planning to import people to assist with this process where are they going to live?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: They're going to live in houses and they're going to build a lot of houses—the houses that that Government failed to build over nine long years.