Housing New Zealand's Clayton Ave apartment complex was finished in just six months. Housing NZ's Andrew Booker says: "This is housing of the future and it is here, now."

Housing New Zealand has built a three-storey block of units in half the time it would ordinarily take.

The complex in Clayton Ave, Otara, Auckland was built on land designated as a "Mixed Housing Urban Zone" under the new Auckland unitary plan, using cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels from Nelson company Xlam.

The build was a first for Housing NZ, which is using prefabricated technology to build warmer, better properties faster.

Prefab technology also allowed Housing NZ to put more dwellings on each of the sections it owns, contributing to the "densification" of the city, just as Auckland Council envisaged when it passed its unitary plan in 2016.

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The unitary plan promises to be a Nimby's worst nightmare, with owners of some sites now able to erect three-storey buildings without protracted consenting processes, or even consulting with the neighbours.

For Housing NZ, the changes to the unitary plan were key to it being able to build around 11,000 state houses in the next 10 years to meet demand, said Housing NZ's Andrew Booker.

"We needed those plan changes to be able to house the number of people living in Auckland," he said.

HOUSING NZ The three-storey complex was entirely prefabricated in a factory and constructed on site.

Booker was also enjoying the "Made in New Zealand" dimension of the Clayton Ave project, and seven other building projects it has underway in Auckland.

"CLT is made from sustainable New Zealand timber," he said.

Booker is the social housing agency's general manager for business innovation and development.

He said with much of the building manufactured off site, the CLT structure took just three weeks to be installed on site.

"It only required one crane and a small number of people using drills and ladders," he said, minimising the impact on neighbours from the building work, though the finishing took longer.

"Using prefabricated panels means much of the noisy work was already done off site. This is an important factor when building in existing residential areas, such as Otara, so it's much more neighbour-friendly.

"The new apartment building took less than six months to complete, which is around half the build time of a comparatively sized conventional building. That's important when we're trying to house people and families into warm and dry homes quickly," Booker said.

The apartment complex is more thermally efficient than many of Housing NZ's traditionally built properties.

"It's designed to be thermally efficient and will require less energy to heat or cool than a conventionally constructed building," Booker said.

The complex has eight one-bedroom apartments, and will accommodate around 16 tenants.

It replaced a single two-bedroom stand-alone home built in the 1960s.

The apartments are not large, but they are meant as temporary, transitional accommodation of around three months for young people, and will be run by the charity Lifewise, which battles homelessness. Each apartment is 55sqm, with a 9.7sqm balcony.

The block is only one of eight CLT projects currently underway, some very near competition, which will provide 170 new homes in Auckland.

"Housing New Zealand will increasingly look to use these building technologies as a way to deliver healthy, efficient homes more quickly to meet the growing demand for housing," Booker said.

The prefabricated building industry is on a high after Housing Minister Phil Twyford identified it as a key player in delivering affordable homes under the government's KiwiBuild plan.