In 2019, Kāinga Ora pledged to build houses above the minimums set by the Building Code, choosing the NZ Green Building Council’s rating tool and aiming for Homestar 6 (or “good” on the 10-point scale). Shaw said the extra costs to meet this standard for new social housing had been less than first expected. “This comes as no surprise to me, but it’s been a lot cheaper to introduce that standard universally across all new builds than people were saying at first… It’s not going to take much to then leap-frog to one of the highest possible standards,” he added.