Council & Business
23 August, 2024
Affordable housing shortage
The Central Goldfields Shire Council has adopted a new action plan to help grapple with the ongoing housing crisis.
The Social and Affordable Housing Challenges and Opportunities paper, tabled at Tuesday’s ordinary council meeting, provides 14 ideas for council to engage stakeholders in addressing the issue.
The report written by Regional Housing Victoria identifies that “there are not enough affordable homes to meet the needs of our community”.
According to the paper, in 2023, only 136 private rental lettings were deemed affordable to lower-income households, a stark decline in the proportion of affordable private rentals from 91.7 percent in 2016 to 65.1 percent.
The heightened competition for affordable housing is not only restricting the local economy with businesses unable to provide accommodation for open vacancies, but causing the most vulnerable residents to miss out on properties, according to the report.
The paper also states that around 500 households are living in housing stress (spending more than 30 percent of their income on rental or mortgage costs), inhibiting residents’ ability to cover basic living costs such as food and clothing.
“You can see from the stats we are short of housing and short of funding and we need this paper for future planning,” Central Goldfields Shire councillor Grace La Vella said.
“The growth in the cost of housing has been significant over the past five years, rental costs have risen 40 percent, building costs have risen by 63 percent [and] the availability of housing, particularly rentals, has dramatically fallen in this time.
“While around sixty-five new homes are built in the municipality each year, this rate will barely keep up with population growth and will not be sufficient to address housing stress and homelessness.”
According to Regional Housing Victoria estimations, 848 households in the Central Goldfields have an unmet need for affordable housing, with 560 people listed on the Victorian Housing Register in 2023, a more than 31 percent increase from three years prior (426).
Cr La Vella said while more needs to be done, housing projects are currently in development to help assist the issue.
“There are a number of housing projects currently in the pipeline, a 20-unit development in Margaret Avenue [was] approved with 50 percent social housing,” she said.
“There’s a 19-unit planning permit approved from a private developer and Haven Home Safe received [an] invitation for a formal application, now we’re awaiting the outcome of that.
“[A planning application was submitted] for a 21 lot subdivision at 7 Sebastopol Street, some of which would cater for affordable housing and is currently under assessment.”
Key opportunities identified in the document include:
Review all available council-owned land and explore the appetite in the community to gift/sell/lease appropriate land for projects.
Council to redouble efforts to create additional supply and identify where additional infrastructure is needed to make land available.
Council to contact local construction industry stakeholders to investigate capacity constraints and opportunities to build more than 65 homes a year.
Council to further link with local businesses to assess the unmet demand for worker accommodation and seek agreement for businesses to underwrite or commit to projects that will address these issues.
Council to maintain contact with local support agencies to monitor trends relating to housing needs.
In a bid to combat the issue, the Federal Government established Housing Australia in 2023 to oversee the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund to enable more social and affordable housing.
The Victorian Government has also integrated the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build program, which has funded six projects in the shire to provide 25 new homes worth $7.5 million.
According to Central Goldfields Shire councillor Chris Meddows-Taylor further input from the state and federal governments is vital in assisting the needs of the community.
“Australia is in a housing crisis —it will not be resolved in any particular time, it will take the next few years to play out,” he said.
“I think it’s incumbent of both the state and commonwealth governments to work together on solutions.
“One of I think the very progressive solutions that the Commonwealth Government introduced as part of its support housing package is the grants of up to $45 million to councils without co-contributions.
“Enabling infrastructure to take many forms will be a key thing [because] we will not have the funds ourselves to do that, so I commend the Commonwealth Government for that.
“I hope the State [Government] will match and work in so that we can access both towards infrastructure and do so in the years to come because that will be critical in meeting the housing crisis.”