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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. 

Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.

See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.

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Archive

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Key topics

A regenerative housing estate at Gisborne that’s attracted a lot of savvy people and community buy in

Poppy Johnson
The Fifth Estate (No paywall)

Glen Junor in Gisborne is liveable, carbon positive and good for your hip pocket, with half the land to remain open for people and nature to share. Modelled on Serenbe in the US ...

https://www.thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/a-reg…

# Australia, Utilities water energy internet, Planning and development.
 

Using super for homes will mean ‘bigger mortgages’, Labor says

Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)

Allowing young people to use their superannuation to buy into the property market would drive up house prices and leave them with larger mortgages, Labor is warning as it encourages the Morrison government to support NSW’s move to axe stamp duty to make homes more affordable.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/using-super-for-homes-wi…

# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, State Government, Tax.
 

Social landlords accused of inaction on racial harassment

Dominic Brady
Inside Housing (Paywall)

More must be done to stamp out racial harassment in social housing, former sector leaders have said. In an open letter to the National Housing Federation (NHF), former housing association chief executives and directors of housing called on the trade body to initiate a “rapid review of the advice, practice and governance of racial harassment in social housing”.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/social-landlords-accus…

# International, Discrimination, Public and community housing.
 

Sydney developer’s plans for old James Hardie site suffer setback

Matt O'Sullivan
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)

The state government has further frustrated Sydney property developer Charlie Demian’s plans to redevelop the heavily contaminated former James Hardie asbestos factory site near Parramatta. The Department of Planning has refused his company’s request for a change to planning rules which would clear the way for a large mixed-use development on the 6.7-hectare site at Camellia, comprising 3200 homes and buildings up to 126 metres tall, or 40 storeys.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-developer-s-plans-for…

# NSW, Planning and development, State Government.
 

House prices to rise by 16 per cent over 2021 and 2022: CBA forecast

Ellen Lutton
Domain (Paywall)

Australia is on the “cusp of a housing boom”, according to the Commonwealth Bank, which has forecast house prices will skyrocket by a massive 16 per cent over the next two years. An economics issues paper by the bank’s head of Australian economics, Gareth Aird, predicted national house prices would rise 9 per cent rise in 2021 and a further 7 per cent in 2022.

https://www.domain.com.au/news/house-prices-to-rise-by-14-per-ce…

# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.
 

‘Last gasp in rollercoaster ride’: CBA tips property prices to rise 14 per cent within two years

Matthew Elmas
The New Daily (No paywall)

It could cost you an extra $110,000 to $160,000 to buy a house in Sydney or Melbourne by the end of next year, with prices in capital cities tipped to increase 14.4 per cent over the next 24 months. Those are the latest predictions from economists at Commonwealth Bank, who believe Australia’s latest housing boom will deliver massive price increases across every capital city by 2022.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/02/15/housing-p…

# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.
 

Perth hotel left in the lurch amid bickering over $20,000 homeless accommodation bill

Marta Pascual Juanola
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)

A Perth family-owned hotel has been left in the lurch amid bickering over who will pick up the bill to temporarily house homeless people in the wake of the dismantling of Fremantle’s ‘tent city’. Perth City Apartment owner Eddie Kamil said the hotel was more than $20,000 out of pocket and warned the business was running out of cash to continue housing and feeding the rough sleepers.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-hotel-le…

# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.
 

Behind Sydney’s award-winning urban renewal of the Green Square project

Jenny Brown
(Paywall)

Twenty years ago, just after the opening of Green Square station, four kilometres from Sydney’s CBD, a relatively young Australian landscape firm, McGregor Coxall, won an international competition to master-plan the town centre of what continues to unfold as Australia’s biggest urban renewal project. Built over the cleared 278 hectares of heavily industrialised land, this massive residential, cultural, work, retail and play suburb is still a dusty, noisy scene of cranes and trucks, jackhammers and Stop/Slow signs.
Terrific bits of community infrastructure are already operational; not only are they well patronised, they’ve won major architectural awards. (commercialrealestate.com.au)

https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/behind-sydneys-awar…

# NSW, Housing market, Planning and development.
 

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