Revisiting zombie towns: What happens when the housing supply keeps up

In many parts of New Zealand houses have become unaffordable. But where housing supply has kept up, the provinces can be a genuinely better deal. After housing costs, you may have more money in your pocket than a higher paying job in Auckland or Wellington.It's not enough to have jobs, you must have homes that are warm, dry and affordable. Many provinces have cheap homes, but they are old and cold.But when you build homes that people want, and help them into it, it can rekindle communities.Kaitangata, affectionately known as Kai, shows it can be done. I met Amber and Kobe, a nurse and a linesman, both local, both in their twenties.Two years ago they bought a brand new home in Kai. "A little over $500,000 for everything," Kobe told me. "That's the land and the whole house." They aren't slaves to their mortgage. They are house proud, settled, and playing netball on a Friday night and cricket on Saturday.This was possible because locals turned an obstacle into an opportunity. Kai hollowed out after the coal mine closed. Joyce Beck, the former school principal, calls what was left "a bit of a ghost town". There were serviced sections everywhere, and they were so cheap the banks wouldn't lend to build on them.Evan Dick, a third-generation dairy farmer, wanted to do something about it. "I thought even if I get one house out of it, just one house, it's a success." He recruited Joyce, who could write a letter and talk to anyone. Joyce recruited Liz Jenkinson, a legal secretary, to run things. They worked together, informally but tightly, and they stuck at it.Their cunning plan was pretty simple. They went to the local plumbers, electricians, builders and surveyors and asked, in Bryan Cadogan's telling, not for a best price but for "a Kai Rules price": a fair margin, not silly city money, in return for steady work if it took off. Evan's aim was to take the risk out for everyone. He cornered Sir Stephen Tindall over scones and a cup of tea, and got seed money that rolled over as each house sold. Once a house was built, the banks would lend, and young people could use their KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal. The council supported it too.Watch the series: Zombie TownsJoyce had planned for six houses. There are now 30, dotted around Kai. Section prices have tripled. The school roll is growing.The council is now trying to copy Kai in Balclutha and Milton. Councils play an unusual role in small communities. As the biggest organisation in town, they alone have the scale and gravity to pull people together and nudge things along. The market on its own was never going to build in Clutha. Sections sold for $50,000 to $60,000, and the pipes under them cost the same as in Auckland. No developer would bother. So the council subdivided its own land on old forestry blocks above Balclutha.We hear a lot about councils as bouncers, all rates and red tape. In Clutha I saw ushers, holding the door and guiding things through. Jock Martin, the current mayor, calls the council "the district's glue". Wellington is capping rates and pushing councils towards regional reorganisation. Jock's retort: "Who knows the communities better than the people that actually live in those communities?" I fear this quiet, local job will be lost in the rush to make councils bigger and do less.On that subdivision I met Shannon, a builder from Dunedin. He is looking at his first house in Milton, where his Nana lives. "It's so much more affordable." He reckons he'll spend the rest of his life here.House building in Clutha is the fastest in decades. It's not Auckland numbers, but it is a flywheel: more homes, more people to fill local vacancies, more homes needed.Where the people arrived before the houses did, as in Rotorua, provinces became unaffordable too. Housing supply has to keep pace with the people, and leave a path for local kids to stay. Housing is infrastructure and must be an integral part of creating good reasons for people to live there.On today's episode of Zombie Towns, Bryan Cadogan drives me to Kaitangata, a coal town that had become "a bit of a ghost town". I meet the dairy farmer and retired principal who got houses built on what were horse paddocks, a young couple who have made a great start in life in one of these Kai homes, and the high school programme that has put nearly 200 students into building apprenticeships.