Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Flood insurance costing $30,000 highlights which areas should not be developed for housing
Michael Janda ABC (No paywall)Thousands of the people enduring the heartbreaking sight of their homes sinking beneath a rising brown tide across the east of NSW are doing so knowing they don't have insurance coverage. ... The reason so many are uninsured is either that their insurer won't offer flood protection at all, or that it is prohibitively expensive, with residential premiums of up to $30,000 a year being cited. ... State Emergency Service planner and former deputy commissioner Chas Keys has [said] ... "We are putting thousands and thousands of people on flood plains between Penrith and downstream of Windsor in the valley of South Creek and the valley of the Hawkesbury proper," he said. "Now flood plains are bound to flood, they are designed by nature to flood, and we are aiming to double the population of the Hawkesbury-Nepean over certain years, to me there is a certain insanity in that."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-23/flood-insurance-costing-3…
# NSW, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government.Targeting New Zealand's property speculators is popular, but won't fix the housing crisis
Bryce Edwards The Guardian (No paywall)Property speculators have become public enemy number one in New Zealand’s rampant housing affordability crisis. Those buying, selling and renting out multiple properties have become wealthy at the expense of those in the middle and at the bottom of the market, who are paying high rents and struggling to afford to buy decent housing. It is no surprise therefore that the housing announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues on Tuesday was firmly focused on reining in those investors driving up the prices – with the most significant elements of the package designed to hit investors with increased tax responsibilities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/23/targeting-new-zeal…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Melbourne house prices tipped for biggest surge in a decade
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)House prices are tipped to grow at their fastest pace since the late 1980s, with Melbourne prices expected to lift by 16 per cent this year, the largest single-year increase since 2010.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-house-prices-…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.We need not live on the edge, where fire and flood will overrun us
George Morgan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)One of the hallmarks of western “civilisation” is our belief that we can master the forces of nature through the power of reason. Ever since our ancestors first gathered in cities about 6000 years ago, they believed that engineering know-how would make us less vulnerable than those in the hinterland. But at certain moments this belief seems like hubris. ... The extreme weather associated with climate change has thrown into question the way we build our cities.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/we-need-not-live-on-the-edge…
# Hot topic NSW, Planning and development.How to improve public health, the environment and racial equity all at once: Upgrade low-income housing
Jonathan Levy The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... As an environmental health researcher, I have studied ways in which inadequate housing influences health and disproportionately affects low-income families and communities of color. In my view, retrofitting low-income housing in particular is a high-leverage way to tackle some of our nation’s most pressing health, social and environmental challenges.
https://theconversation.com/how-to-improve-public-health-the-env…
# International, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Health, Housing market, Human rights.Forgotten land of Haberfield sinks into the bog
Harriet Alexander The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Time might have forgotten the $18 million development site that has stood idle for nearly two decades in the middle of Haberfield, but the recent weather system has not. The 1.9-hectare paddock, six kilometres from the CBD, has remained undeveloped since the Department of Defence sold it to 21 parties in 2003, because engineers have been unable to come up with an affordable and effective way of draining the site. It sits below sea level and within 100 metres of Hawthorne Canal and collects the suburb’s accumulated stormwater. Recently, it has morphed into a swamp.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/forgotten-land-of-haberfield…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Sydney real estate mystery: the $18m inner-city land untouched for 18 years
Harriet Alexander The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Nobody in the neighbourhood remembers the exact date in 2003 when 1.9 hectares of disused army land was put to market in the heritage suburb of Haberfield, but they all remember that it was Mother’s Day. It was the mother of all Mother’s Days. ... Eighteen years later, the land remains dormant, overgrown with grass and soggy after rain ...
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-real-estate-mystery-t…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.WA tradies are hot property as home building goes through the roof
Tess Ingram The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From Western Australia ... The local building market has become so competitive builders are approaching trades on rival job sites with offers of bonuses and other incentives to try and lure them to their projects. ... builders and construction trades are busier than they have been in years, thanks to state and federal government incentives which have sparked a dramatic increase in demand for new homes in recent months.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-tradies-are…
# Australia, Housing market.