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
Developers rush to beat the clock on affordable housing rule changes
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Developers are racing to beat new planning regulations designed to boost the supply of affordable housing which they warn will make it unfeasible for them to build low-cost accommodation. Advocates for affordable housing say the existing laws around boarding houses have allowed developers to reap government incentives for constructing micro-apartments that are too expensive for low-income earners. ... Shelter NSW policy director Ryan Harris supported the government’s reforms, saying it was a good outcome if developers were no longer offered incentives to build micro apartments they leased for $400 a week.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developers-rush-to-beat-the-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market.Could the biggest result of pandemic stimulus and low interest rates be higher house prices in Australia?
Greg Jericho The Guardian (No paywall)House prices keep going up. Regardless of falls in employment or a sharper drop in national production than has ever been experienced, through 2020 house prices around the country rose and once again in Sydney the median price is $1m.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/could-the-…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.White Bay Power Station the centrepiece of draft plan to revive area
Angus Thompson and Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Restoration of the White Bay Power Station as a cultural building and the reopening of the Glebe Island Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists are at the centre of a NSW government plan to transform Sydney’s industrial harbour into a business, leisure and tourism precinct. A draft strategy, released for consultation on Monday, revives the idea of White Bay as a technology hub previously floated by Google and puts residential development ... back on the table. ... It makes housing a key strategic direction, including affordable housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/white-bay-power-station-the-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Planning and development.'Can you help me?': The quiet desperation of New Zealand's housing crisis
Elle Hunt The Guardian (No paywall)With prices soaring, many fear they will never be able to buy. Others will try anything as the crisis threatens to define a generation.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/20/can-you-help-me-th…
# Hot topic International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Renting Is Terrible. Owning Is Worse.
Shane Phillips (No paywall)America conceives of itself as an “ownership society.” Nearly two-thirds of U.S. households own their home, and the idea of renting is inseparable from ownership in the U.S. context. Renting is given meaning by its relationship to ownership—it’s how you live if you can’t afford, or aren’t yet ready, to own. America treats renting as it has treated the minimum wage for the past several decades: unworthy of serious concern, just a phase in young people’s lives, and a long-term outcome only for those unwilling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This perspective is a big part of why renters enjoy so few protections, and why the U.S. showers roughly $150 billion on homeowners each year but only a fraction of that on renters, despite renters having about half the median household income of owners. [Read on ...] (The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/why-its-better…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Home ownership.Can America Learn From France’s Award-Winning Public Housing Architects?
Kriston Capps (No paywall)For their socially oriented projects, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, an award typically reserved for high-flying design. ... The architects rejected the official strategy of demolition and reconstruction [of public housing], prioritizing transformation in place. ... [And, in the United States, progressive advocates and lawmakers are turning back to public housing] ... with their proposed Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made retrofits for public housing the engine for jobs and climate action.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-17/pritzker-priz…
# International, Public and community housing, Estate renewal.Tasmanian Greens to introduce bill to keep rental increases in line with CPI
Annah Fromberg ABC (No paywall)We signed a lease in January and the lease had said that the rent was going to be $220 per week and that was fine no problem, we've been living there five years," she said. "Then last week we got an email stating that they were looking to increase our rent to $350 per week starting in May." ... Greens Leader Cassy O'Connor will today introduce a bill into state parliament that aims to implement the model for rent increases used in the Australian Capital Territory, where rent increases are in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), plus 10 per cent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/greens-rent-increase-cpi/…
# Legal significance Australia, Rent, Housing market.The future of community housing includes social solutions
Amanda Woodard The Fifth Estate (No paywall)Demand for community housing is on the rise. It’s not just because there is a housing shortage – New South Wales alone has an immediate shortfall of around 200,000 social and affordable houses – but also because community housing alleviates social problems.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/the-futur…
# NSW, Public and community housing.