Building And Real Estate Boom In Manukau Continues
Manukau’s housing boom has seen the highest number of consents for new building projects issued by Manukau City Council
in 25 years. There were 1917 dwelling consents issued in 2002, up 20% from a year earlier.
House sales in Manukau December were up 38% and prices rose 10% on average.
Immigration and migration are major factors driving the boom. Manukau City’s population increased by 16,000 in the year
to June 2002. Of those, 9,500 were New Zealanders moving to Manukau from other parts of the country. The rest of the
increase was from natural population growth and the arrival of immigrants.
Large numbers of immigrants continue to choose to live in the Auckland region and around 7% of the total settle in
Manukau.
New Zealanders are still leaving the country long term in large numbers but they are exceeded by huge inflows of new
settlers. The number of permanent and long term immigrants outnumbered the departing residents by just over 38,000 in
the year to December. This is the highest net inflow since 1995.
In addition to large scale home building there are a number of large retail and other non-housing projects underway in
Manukau, including the building of three schools, two state and one Catholic. The largest is a $15 million school state
school in Howick. The Auckland region is the only area of New Zealand where school rolls are growing significantly and
Manukau schools have 26% of the region’s students.
The estimated rate of economic growth in Manukau was 3% in the year to December. However there was a 20% fall in hours
paid in Manukau construction firms.
The spread of new housing developments in the Botany/East Tamaki area is continuing faster than expected and the area is
scheduled to be full by 2009, rather than by 2015 as was initially predicted.
Manukau mayor Sir Barry Curtis says the building industry is of vital importance.
“Construction is one of the key sectors in Manukau’s economy and many businesses are linked to it directly or
indirectly. There are more than 17,000 businesses in Manukau. Over the past year 90 new businesses were set up in the
main commercial centres, and 75 in the main industrial areas. This figure probably underestimates the total as no
records are kept on the numbers of new businesses being run or set up from home.”
The new businesses in the city include the Ulrich Aluminium plant in Wiri. The company will be setting up its new
premises having recently decided to move to Manukau from Otahuhu.