Work on all 30 regional planned dwellings is underway and first to completion will be four houses in Port Augusta where the new residents will move in shortly following a handover from the builders on Monday, 30 September.

The surge in construction is being facilitated by the Office for Regional Housing (OFRH) which was set up early last year to increase the supply of new housing across regional SA.

Construction is currently progressing at sites in Mount Gambier, Renmark, Kadina, Moonta Bay and early works have also started on six new houses in Ceduna. All the new homes across SA will provide accommodation for health, education and SAPOL workers.

Police and health workers will be first tenants of the Port Augusta homes (three, three bedroom houses and one, two bedroom house) which have been built by Adelaide firm Constructwell and delivered a whopping three months ahead of schedule.

OFRH director Matt Hunt was upbeat when inspecting the homes last week.

“I’m very happy with the way the builders have been able to come in at a good pricing point and be done and dusted in seven months from when they took ownership of the site. It has been a fantastic outcome,” Mr Hunt said.

“I have a lot of colleagues in Adelaide asking if my builders up here in Port Augusta can come and do work for them.”

New, top-notch housing was imperative to help attract key workers, he said.

“The state government needs to be able to deliver quality services throughout the state including places like Port Augusta where so many critical services are delivered for the town and surrounding area and into the north of the state,” he said.

“It’s great to be able to get some new houses on the ground dedicated to the people coming to Port Augusta and all the other towns where we are building.”

The availability of top-quality local tradies was instrumental to the early outcome, said Constructwell director Charlie Siciliano.

“Having worked in the country for many decades we have a plethora of trades, all are ready to go. We have complemented them with some out of Adelaide but it’s basically a local construction, about a 70/30 split,” he said.

Up to 200 tradies, starting with the earthworks through to final landscaping, have worked on the four homes Mr Siciliano said.

Trevor Byles, corporate services director with the Flinders Upper North Local Health Network, said the housing would allow us to attract high quality staff that we can accommodate for 12-month periods.

He said medical staff relocating to Port Augusta could come from anywhere but it will not happen without first-rate accommodation.

“These are fantastic looking houses, the quality we should be supplying to staff we are trying to attract here. If we can give them accommodation at a level they enjoy and we are proud of, then hopefully they will look at the longer-term incentives of staying in Port Augusta,” he said.

Elsewhere, accommodation for essential government workers is gathering pace in Mount Gambier with four homes on track to be handed over by the builder Empak by late October, two months ahead of schedule. A second project in Mount Gambier will be completed in mid-2025.

Office for Regional Housing Director Matt Hunt is thrilled with the overall progress.

“Port Augusta and Mount Gambier are leading the way in terms of new home completion, but building is booming too on the Yorke Peninsula where builder Country Living Homes has five homes at Kadina under construction and another four homes in Moonta Bay. The houses in Kadina are approaching lock-up stage and will be ready to move into early next year,” he said.

“Slabs have been poured in Moonta Bay, and frames are now going up, so those houses won’t be too far behind.”

“We’re very pleased with the way the builders at all sites are getting the job done quickly and with great zest. I’m very impressed with the all-round commitment shown by the construction industry.”

Construction of homes in the Riverland is moving swiftly too with five homes for essential workers well underway. Slabs were completed in mid-August in Renmark with the roofing and cladding underway. The builder, Rockford Homes, is targeting completion in early to mid-2025.

Meanwhile six new homes will soon be well underway at Ceduna with a local First Nations builder, RJ Scott, appointed and early works now underway. All the new houses will be assembled via a ground-breaking modular building system which will see the houses go from slab to lock-up within one week. The integrated panel system ensures that conventional framing and accompaniments such as external cladding and gyprock linings are not needed.

There are more projects in the pipeline for the Office for Regional Housing, with $30 million for regional housing projects announced in the recent 2024 State Budget. This includes $10 million for the Regional Housing Initiatives Program which aims to identify regional housing projects that can bring significant strategic value to the state but may require targeted assistance and partnership with government to be delivered.

And it’s not just essential workers who are benefiting from the construction uplift. Seven school students have successfully taken part in the projects through the Renewal SA Works Program allowing them to gain real-time work experience on one of the regional housing projects and perhaps find out whether they’d like to pursue a career in construction.

Grace Pix, a Year 10 student from Caritas College (Port Augusta) and a Scouts volunteer, is keen to pursue an apprenticeship but is not yet set upon a specific trade. She recently spent two weeks working with steel frame trades, flooring contractors, a hose detailer and concrete contractor at the Port Augusta project.

“Ten out of ten,” said Mr Siciliano. “Grace was very keen to learn and all her tasks were performed adequately, her use of tools were above her age profile. She worked with steel framing, concreting, flooring, carpenters. She’s a good communicator and very pleasant.”