Emily Watt reports that a Labour-led government would let low-income people build houses on Crown land in a bid to improve housing affordability.

Prime Minister Helen Clark released Labour's housing policy at a house in the Auckland suburb of Avondale this afternoon, saying housing affordability had become a problem for a lot of young couples, with prices rising 80 per cent in the six years since 2002.

She said that under the new HOPE (Home Ownership on the Public Estate) initiative, low-income people would pay for the building of their house on the land, a move which would dramatically lower the cost of a home.

The scheme was similar to one proposed by National, but under National's policy the home owner would eventually be able to buy the land.

Labour would not allow the land to be sold as they wished the home to remain affordable into the future.

Labour had identified a significant number of Crown land sites in Auckland where there was shortage of affordable homes and would make 1500 sites available over the next four years for families to build homes.

Material released with the announcement did not indicate what level of income would be the cut-off mark, but it did indicate it would be below $73,000 per household.