10 March 2017
The Federal Government’s proposed affordable housing bond aggregator should be accessible to private sector housing providers as well as not for profit community housing providers, says the Urban Taskforce.
“While the announcement by Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison, that a taskforce will develop an affordable housing bond aggregator to help stimulate more affordable housing is a good step forward we believe it should be accessible to all providers of housing,” says Urban Taskforce CEO, Chris Johnson. “Most housing in Australian cities is developed by the private property sector so any support for more affordable housing should influence all housing providers as well as community housing providers.”
“State Governments like New South Wales and Victoria are developing approaches to increasing the supply of affordable housing but policies, such as the proposed affordable housing targets outlined in the draft Sydney District Plans, require developers to donate a percentage of the dwellings in a development to community housing providers as affordable housing. All this does is force the cost of the affordable dwellings onto the buyers of the non-affordable housing in the development, thereby lifting housing costs.”
“If private developers are able to access cheaper loans through the bond aggregator then they are more likely to be able to provide a component of affordable housing.”
“The Urban Taskforce believes there are many policy changes that can help with affordable housing in NSW. This would include modifying the Affordable Rental Housing SEPP 2009 to make the provision of 20% affordable homes to be offset by a 20% bonus floor space provision. We also believe that significant costs are being added top Sydney homes by the slow and complex planning system compared to other states and cities.”
“The announcement by the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian that funds from the Social and Affordable Housing Fund have been distributed to 5 parties to deliver thousands of homes is a good contribution to this sector.”
“The Urban Taskforce is developing a package of actions to help solve Sydney’s housing crisis and we are keen to work with government agencies.
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