As federal leaders argue over the best way to make it
cheaper to build a home in Sydney’s new suburbs, local governments are looking
at ways of keeping so-called “key workers” from moving out of
established areas.
The City of Canada Bay Council
says it is following in the tracks of North Sydney, Randwick,
Willoughby and Waverley
in approving a plan for a developer to give 15 of the 313 flats in North Strathfield back to the council. They would be
rented out at a discounted rate.
“Councils are being encouraged to fill the gap left by
other levels of government, particularly through its role in planning,
development and construction,” the council’s policy says.
Waverley Council has run an affordable housing program to
keep the elderly and disadvantaged in the district as the arrival of the likes
of James Packer drives up real estate prices.
It now wants to entrench the programs in the rules of its
local environment plan and extend it to apply to key workers.
“We believe that our program could be a good model for
the state and other councils,” said the Mayor, Ingrid Strewe.
A report on Canada
Bay’s plan, approved in
August, says the inner-west housing market “is characterised as high
growth, high need and high demand for social and affordable housing”.
“Opportunity to
purchase is very limited,” it says.
The Mayor, Angelo Tsirekas, said it was difficult to find
developers who were happy to strike such agreements.
“They are not coming to you every day to provide
community benefits. I think they would look for added value to their
development.”
But the council has stipulated that six of the 15 units to
be developed by Holdmark Developers would be reserved for health workers at
Concord Hospital, with the hope that tenants will save up for their own home in
the future.
They will be available to people earning between $549.75 to
$1319.40 per week at no more than 75 per cent of the market rate – $460 for a
three-bedroom apartment.
Canada
Bay said local hospitals
and aged-care homes had lost employees on low or moderate incomes because
workers had been unable to find affordable accommodation.
Willoughby Council has a similar project involving providing
low-cost accommodation, where it is to receive part-ownership of 28 of 40 units
in a new development. A spokesman for the council said it had yet to decide how
many of these units are to be sold as low-cost accommodation.
Marrickville Council has recently hired an
affordable-housing officer to help develop its approach in this area.
The City of Sydney
has a target of ensuring that 1 per cent of the housing stock in Ultimo-Pyrmont
is set aside for low-income earners, while at Green Square, the target is 3 per cent.
These targets are low by international standards: the City of London
has a 10 per cent target and some US states such as California have a 20 per cent target.
Efforts to keep key workers from moving away are part of an
international trend. This month alone, new measures were announced in the US, Britain
and New Zealand.
Most involve imposing levies on developers.