Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-25/greens-to-vote-for-labor-help-to-buy-bill/104644574
Tom Crowley ABC (No paywall)The Greens will vote for Labor's Help to Buy and Build to Rent housing bills, ending a lengthy stand-off and handing the government a victory on key elements of its housing agenda. The bills, which would allow up to 40,000 first home buyers to co-purchase homes with the government and offer a tax incentive for apartment complexes designed for renters, now have the numbers to pass the Senate without significant amendments. Greens leader Adam Bandt said his party had "pushed as hard as it could" for Labor to go further on the housing crisis, but would ultimately not stand in its way. "We will wave through Labor's housing bills … but this issue is not going away," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-25/greens-to-vote-for-labor-…
# Must read Australia, .Iconic Sydney building’s land valuation slashed by almost 45 per cent
Michaela Whitbourn The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)It is the prized harbourside block in Sydney best known for the striking brutalist building that sits atop it. But just how much the land occupied by the Sirius building in the Rocks is worth has been at the centre of a multimillion-dollar tussle between the NSW Valuer General and a property developer. The Berejiklian government sold the former public housing block for $150 million in 2019 to private investment firm JDH Capital, led by former Macquarie banker Jean-Dominique Huynh. The $150 million redevelopment, completed this year, boasts 76 high-end apartments, 60 of which were sold in 2021 for a reported $405 million. The project has been divisive because of the sell-off of social housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/iconic-sydney-building-s-lan…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.Beauty Point Tourist Park tells court residency is illegal, as park defends issuing eviction notice
Ashleigh Barraclough ABC (Paywall)Lawyers for the owners of a caravan park in northern Tasmania have told a court it must dismiss a man's fight against eviction, otherwise the park could be operating illegally. A long-term "guest" of the Beauty Point Tourist Park took the park's owners to the Launceston Supreme Court after he was issued an eviction notice earlier this year. On Thursday, lawyers for the park's owners told the court that under planning laws, the park is not approved for more than one residential dwelling. The local council has previously said the park is approved for short-term visitor accommodation.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-29/beauty-point-caravan-park…
# Hot topic Australia, Eviction, Land lease communities.City of Sydney council approves planning proposal to combat shrinking of inner east housing supply
Madeleine Damo Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A Sydney council is cracking down on developers shrinking the inner city’s housing supply, passing planning controls that will make it harder to replace small and “more affordable” apartments with larger, more luxurious dwellings. Under changes to the local environment plan, approved by the City of Sydney council, developers cannot reduce the number of dwellings by more than 15 per cent when redeveloping an existing residential flats building. But the reforms cannot be enforced without approval from the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, to which the proposal will now be sent. The move coincides with six current development applications, which, if successful, would result in a reduction of 143 dwellings in Rushcutters Bay, Elizabeth Bay and Potts Point in the city’s inner east.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/wentworth-courier/ci…
# Must read NSW, .Worse than Sydney: The renters bearing the brunt of unaffordable Perth
Alexandra Koster, Christopher Tan SBS (No paywall)Perth has become the least affordable capital city in Australia, with low-income renters facing the harshest impacts of the crisis, according to a new report. The latest National Shelter-SGS Economics and Planning Rental Affordability Index, released on Friday, revealed the average rental household in Perth now spends 31 per cent of its income on rent, exceeding the threshold for rental stress and, for the first time, surpassing Sydney. It comes as Western Australia is the nation's fastest growing jurisdiction, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest population statistics released in September, which found WA's growth rate was 3.1 per cent year-on-year in March. This growth is driven by a surge in demand for workers in mining, health, police, education, and defence under the AUKUS deal.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/janine-can-only-afford-to-ea…
# Must read Australia, Rent.Sydney's high-rise accelerated precincts at transport hubs fall short of affordable housing options, advocates say
Joshua Boscaini ABC (No paywall)Thousands of new homes are slated to be built across Sydney to help ease the housing crunch, but there are questions about whether the plan includes enough affordable housing options. Transport Oriented Development (TOD) Accelerated Precincts come into effect in seven Sydney suburbs today as the NSW government moves to increase housing supply. The rezoned areas will accommodate 60,000 new homes near metro and train stations, and include space for schools, health services and public parks, the NSW government says.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-27/sydney-transport-oriented…
# NSW, Starting a tenancy.Sally and Shimon spend half their pension on housing. But their only other option is Melbourne’s streets
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)At 67 and 71, Sally Marano and her husband, Shimon, would not be considered among the nation’s typical renters. The Melbourne couple receive about $1,724 a fortnight on the pension and, as of this week, more than half of it goes straight back out of their account: their rent has risen to $890 a fortnight. “It’s going to be very, very hard,” she says, of paying the rent in their new place in Craigieburn. “Very hard. We don’t know how we’re going to manage it. But we had to move somewhere, otherwise we were going to be in the streets.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/22/sally-and…
# Hot topic Australia, .'I’ve made peace with bowing to authority'; How Rose Jackson became Rose Jackson
Alex McKinnon Everything is Fine (No paywall)Until a couple of weeks ago, very few people had heard of NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson. Sadly for Jackson, that is no longer true. Following a disastrous November 11 interview with Hamish Macdonald on ABC Radio Sydney, in which she said that "a couple of hundred bucks" was a reasonable rate at which to rent a two-bedroom flat in Sydney, Jackson has become a figure of derision online. Jackson’s response has not helped. Rather than issue a stock-standard apology and go to ground, Jackson has been posting through it, claiming she didn’t say what she said, leaving lengthy comments on posts criticising her, and recording videos about how “it's important that we're just all a bit kind to each other”.
https://everythingisfine.beehiiv.com/p/how-rose-jackson-became-r…
# Hot topic NSW, .