Canberrans may not get to know exactly how the territory government plans to spend $100 million on affordable housing over the next five years until the 2019 budget.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
While the government’s announcement of the long-awaited housing strategy has been largely welcomed by stakeholders, the strategy published on Monday was light on the details.
It outlines the government plans to increase the territory’s overall affordable housing target to 15 per cent, add 151 dwellings to community housing providers’ books and release 510 sites for affordable housing each year for five years.
But the strategy does not include specific targets for the three categories of affordable housing: community housing, public housing and land for affordable home ownership.
It also does not detail how the extra $100 million would be spent, nor in which years the funds would be spent, and the vast majority of "actions" for government to do have no specific date attached to when they would be completed.
The strategy outlines a much greater role for community housing providers in the city, while up to 1000 public housing dwellings would be renovated and 200 more built over five years, and blocks of land for affordable housing would be expanded from about 400 a year to about 630.
The strategy will not change the government’s "salt and pepper" policy on public housing distribution, but will provide more scope for medium density housing, alongside several policy reviews on foot on the Territory Plan, an inquiry into the development application system more broadly, the government's City and Gateway strategy and work related to building quality.
Housing Minister Yvette Berry said the funding was a great thing for Canberra, and thanked Chief Minister Andrew Barr for being willing to invest in growing public housing, unlike treasurers in other jurisdictions.
But Ms Berry was unable to cast further light on the details of the affordable housing targets, or where and when the money would be spent, or exactly how the government would measure its effectiveness without firm dates on many recommendations.
Among the actions the strategy outlined was a need to write a plan to grow and renew the city’s public housing stock, which Ms Berry said was a reference to the need for a new public housing asset management strategy.
It is also unclear whether any specific funding will be allocated to increase specialist crisis accommodation, or funds could be ring-fenced to boost the number of beds for women fleeing domestic violence or housing for people with a disability, though there would be a bigger focus on building more adaptable housing.
That strategy was published in 2012, and the demand forecasts it contains have not been updated in the six years since, despite wide concerns in the sector demand could be much higher than previously thought.
Mr Barr said the land release targets and specifics of funding allocations would form part of next year’s budget process, and stakeholders were already preparing submissions to that process.
He also said the funding came on top of the $131 million the Commonwealth had agreed to provide over the next five years, and despite a need to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax, the territory was doing what it could.
Among those backing the funding were ACT Shelter’s Travis Gilbert, Woden Community Service’s Chris Redmond, Havelock House’s Neil Skipper and the Greens and Liberal Opposition.
While both political parties broadly backed the funding, Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur and Liberal MLA Mark Parton were concerned about the lack of detail on many measures, and voiced their support for work to start immediately to grow affordable housing.
ACT Council of Social Service chief executive officer Susan Helyar also welcomed it, but said the entire community sector wanted to see the hard details of the strategy as soon as possible.
The council has been calling for such an injection in affordable housing for several years, and Ms Helyar said she was glad to see the government had finally recognised the true scale of the problem.
She said there also needed to be a formal mechanism through which the details could be worked out, a forum that should include community, industry and tenant groups as well as the government.
“We know that for new housing to be built it takes time, but new public housing must be addressed as a matter of urgency,” she said.
“We also want the increased number of community housing sites to be available for people to live in as soon as possible, but there is some detail to be worked through on inclusionary zoning.”
Ms Helyar said the community sector also wanted action on providing more affordable land to community housing providers as soon as possible, and would be looking to hold the government to account.
