ACT Independent Senator David Pocock is today introducing a private senator’s bill to better leverage land owned by the Federal Government for the supply of new affordable housing.
Senator Pocock’s bill would make it mandatory for affordable housing to be included in any residential development on Commonwealth land that’s sold or leased to private entities. This would include things like the $3 billion sell-off of 67 surplus defence sites across the country as well as the sale of the CSIRO Ginninderra site here in the ACT.
The Albanese Government has made significant investments, including through the Housing Australia Future Fund, in new social and affordable housing as well as pursuing historic tax reform.
Senator Pocock said that despite these positive steps, the federal government investment does not come close to meeting need with an estimated shortfall of some 640,000 social and affordable homes.
“I commend the Albanese Government on its focus on increasing social and affordable housing supply but urge them in their second term to increase their ambition,” Senator Pocock said.
“The job has only started on addressing housing in Australia and there’s a lot of anxiety around what happens once HAFF round three concludes.
“In the UK we see Andy Burnham promising the largest council house-building program in the post-war period. Canada’s National Housing Strategy (NHS) is investing upwards of $82 billion in housing. We need the Australian Government to also go big.”
The bill sets a default level of 30% affordable housing for federal government land sold or leased for residential development but allows another proportion to be prescribed by regulations affording some flexibility to respond to different site types and market conditions.
It stipulates that rent for an affordable housing dwelling must be the lower of: (a) 75% of the market rent for the dwelling; and (b) 30% of household income. Eligibility to rent this affordable housing is determined by households whose income is below a specified amount that has regard to the median household income for the area.
The bill includes penalties for non compliance and exemptions for certain sites based on size, contamination, location in low housing demand areas, land unsuitable for residential dwellings.