Air base sites may be too pricey for first-home buyers

Roads, artificial lakes and even playground structures are sprouting at the massive Hobsonville housing development - but political promises to make some houses affordable for first-home buyers have so far come to nothing.

The former air base, now being sliced up into sites for 3000 homes and a boatbuilding complex, was originally designed by the former Labour Government to include 15 per cent state rental housing and another 15 per cent "affordable" housing such as shared-equity.

The National Government elected in 2008 dropped the state housing but made Hobsonville the flagship for its proposed "Gateway" scheme, giving first-home buyers free use of Crown land for up to 10 years provided they start building on the land within a year.

Last October, Housing Minister Phil Heatley promised that "up to 100" of the 660 lots in the $300 million first stage of the development had been "earmarked as Gateway housing sites".

But with the first houses due to go on sale from September, Hobsonville Land Company chief executive Sean Bignell says he still does not know how many sites may be kept aside for Gateway.

To read the full NZ Herald article, click here

Posted: 14 Jun 2010

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