Extract from The Guardian
The New South Wales
government has announced a trial of private rental subsidies to tackle
youth homelessness, but housing experts and community housing advocates
have called for affordable housing in new developments as a longer term
solution.
The social housing minister, Brad Hazzard, announced the trial on Thursday, citing the need to help find housing for young people, who have the highest rate of homelessness of any age group.
The NSW government will partner with youth homelessness service Launchpad Youth Community to provide two share houses for three years in inner Sydney. Up to six young people at a time will pay a fixed rate of 25% of their income in rent, with the government paying the balance.
Launchpad’s chief executive, Cindi Petersen, said her organisation supported more than 70 young people in short- to medium-term housing funded by the government but “sadly, due to issues of affordability they are unable to exit into the private rental market”.
“This creates a bottleneck keeping young people in the social housing system.”
The chief executive of the NSW Federation of Housing Associations, Wendy Hayhurst, told Guardian Australia rental subsidies were a “great way to help young people quickly ... because you can’t build new properties overnight”.
“But it’s not adding to the overall supply of housing.”
Hayhurst advocates inclusionary zoning, whereby when the government releases new development sites, it mandates a proportion of the development as affordable housing.
The federation argues up to 30% should be reserved for affordable housing. It represents about 45 managers and developers of affordable housing, including the largest community housing providers in NSW.
Hayhurst points to big potential developments such as the Central to Eveleigh rail corridor in Sydney, which will house up to 26,000 people, and the Sydenham to Bankstown corridor, which will have 36,000 new homes by 2036, as perfect places to start.
“There’s resistance to inclusionary zoning where a developer has purchased land at a certain price and they have feasibility studies about expected profits based on that purchase price.
“But if we say upfront and early that they’ll have to factor in that contribution they’ll have to make to affordable housing, they will offer a price for development land that allows them to do that.”
Hayhurst said this was feasible because it could be a condition on the sale of government-owned land or approval for higher density development on privately-owned land.
Speaking at an affordable housing conference in Sydney on Tuesday, British affordable housing expert Prof Glen Bramley said “you have to increase housing supply an awful lot over a long time period to have a moderate impact on affordability”.
Bramley told Guardian Australia his models showed that in Britain prices fell by about a fifth the rate of increase in land for housing, implying that even doubling land for housing would reduce prices only by 20%.
Reserving part of new developments for affordable housing was a better way to increase its supply, he said.
Speaking at an event on older women’s homelessness earlier in March, Hazzard said the government’s RentChoice package in the Future Directions housing policy increased rental support over the next 10 years by 60%.
Hazzard said that requiring companies who had already bought land to provide 10% to 20% affordable housing could “decimate their business case”. But he accepted it was more feasible when new land was released or social housing was renewed to require a mix of private, affordable and social housing.
Hazzard said the planning minister, Rob Stokes, would look at delivering affordable housing in new developments, such as one in Waterloo which Hazzard reportedly said last year should have at least 6,000 affordable dwellings.
The social housing minister, Brad Hazzard, announced the trial on Thursday, citing the need to help find housing for young people, who have the highest rate of homelessness of any age group.
The NSW government will partner with youth homelessness service Launchpad Youth Community to provide two share houses for three years in inner Sydney. Up to six young people at a time will pay a fixed rate of 25% of their income in rent, with the government paying the balance.
Launchpad’s chief executive, Cindi Petersen, said her organisation supported more than 70 young people in short- to medium-term housing funded by the government but “sadly, due to issues of affordability they are unable to exit into the private rental market”.
“This creates a bottleneck keeping young people in the social housing system.”
The chief executive of the NSW Federation of Housing Associations, Wendy Hayhurst, told Guardian Australia rental subsidies were a “great way to help young people quickly ... because you can’t build new properties overnight”.
“But it’s not adding to the overall supply of housing.”
Hayhurst advocates inclusionary zoning, whereby when the government releases new development sites, it mandates a proportion of the development as affordable housing.
The federation argues up to 30% should be reserved for affordable housing. It represents about 45 managers and developers of affordable housing, including the largest community housing providers in NSW.
Hayhurst points to big potential developments such as the Central to Eveleigh rail corridor in Sydney, which will house up to 26,000 people, and the Sydenham to Bankstown corridor, which will have 36,000 new homes by 2036, as perfect places to start.
“There’s resistance to inclusionary zoning where a developer has purchased land at a certain price and they have feasibility studies about expected profits based on that purchase price.
“But if we say upfront and early that they’ll have to factor in that contribution they’ll have to make to affordable housing, they will offer a price for development land that allows them to do that.”
Hayhurst said this was feasible because it could be a condition on the sale of government-owned land or approval for higher density development on privately-owned land.
Speaking at an affordable housing conference in Sydney on Tuesday, British affordable housing expert Prof Glen Bramley said “you have to increase housing supply an awful lot over a long time period to have a moderate impact on affordability”.
Bramley told Guardian Australia his models showed that in Britain prices fell by about a fifth the rate of increase in land for housing, implying that even doubling land for housing would reduce prices only by 20%.
Reserving part of new developments for affordable housing was a better way to increase its supply, he said.
Speaking at an event on older women’s homelessness earlier in March, Hazzard said the government’s RentChoice package in the Future Directions housing policy increased rental support over the next 10 years by 60%.
Hazzard said that requiring companies who had already bought land to provide 10% to 20% affordable housing could “decimate their business case”. But he accepted it was more feasible when new land was released or social housing was renewed to require a mix of private, affordable and social housing.
Hazzard said the planning minister, Rob Stokes, would look at delivering affordable housing in new developments, such as one in Waterloo which Hazzard reportedly said last year should have at least 6,000 affordable dwellings.
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