More than 10 years after the former planning minister Craig
Knowles established a Taskforce on Affordable Housing, which called for
developers to supply a quota of cheap housing in their developments, his
successor, Frank Sartor, told a
parliamentary inquiry that a decision had not been reached. Asking developers
to pay “affordable-housing levies can increase development costs”, Mr
Sartor later said.
“The Government is still pursuing options in relation
to affordable housing,” he told a budget estimates hearing yesterday.
“All these things have to be calibrated against this problem we have of
excessive costs.”
Following a Treasury review, developers will no longer be
asked to help pay for schools, police stations and hospitals to make it cheaper
to build new housing in both new suburbs and established areas. One developer
has already struck an agreement with the State Government in exchange for
building 1600 affordable apartments at the Carlton United Brewery. The fund
will be used by the State Government for housing around Redfern and Waterloo.
Such agreements are designed to keep so-called “key
workers” such as nurses, police and teachers in areas where housing costs
are through the roof.
The brewery site’s developer, Dr Stanley Quek, has agreed to
contribute enough for 75 units priced at $450,000, and recently told the Herald
he is familiar with the policy because of the projects he has completed in London.
But while the London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, required that
as much as 50 per cent of housing in a development must be classed as
affordable, the NSW Government required less than 5 per cent.
Professor Julian Disney, who chaired the State Government’s
housing affordability taskforce in the late 1990s, said “disturbingly
little” had been done since then. Professor Disney had called for quotas
to vary from 10 to 50 per cent. “NSW is dragging the chain badly,” he
said. In South Australia,
planning agreements must be made with a target of 15 per cent affordable
housing.
An Australians for Affordable Housing spokesman, David
Imber, said developer contributions for affordable housing were usually borne
by the seller of land, rather than the developer. “It’s disingenuous for
developers to argue that all these policies will put up the cost of
houses,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Sartor told the parliamentary hearing he had
sent a “show cause” letter to Ku-ring-gai Council as to why it should
not be stripped of significant planning powers. Mr Sartor said a panel could be
appointed under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act “where the
performance of a council in dealing with planning and development matters is,
in my opinion, unsatisfactory”.
He singled out the completion of the council’s planning
rules as a reason for concern.
But the Mayor of Ku-ring-gai, Nick Ebbeck, said: “I
think it’s a disgrace the State Government is taking control of local councils,
which is taking the community out of the picture.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cheap-housing-quota-off-the-boil/2007/10/15/1192300686110.html
[REDWatch Note – The arrangement for the affordable housing levy
from the CUB site coming to Redfern Waterloo was put into the RWA Act
when the RWA was established and was independent of who owns or develops the
CUB site.]