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
Housing reforms will ruin Bondi, council warns
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Bondi Beach’s population will triple, with residential buildings casting shadows over the sand under a worst-case scenario, as the backlash intensifies against the Minns government’s housing reforms. Waverley Council also warned eight-storey apartment complexes could be built next to single-storey homes in the eastern suburbs under the state government’s low- and mid-rise housing proposal.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/housing-reforms-will-ruin-bo…
# Hot topic NSW, .Hundreds of apartments get green light but without affordable housing
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Meriton has been given the green light to build more than 800 homes on an inner-city development site despite dumping plans to build affordable housing. A majority of City of Sydney councillors, led by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, last week voted to green light a proposal for the old Suttons car dealership site in Zetland. Meriton wants to build more than 800 homes as well as a new supermarket, childcare centre and public park on the site, but has backed away from an offer made to the council last year to build affordable homes there.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hundreds-of-apartments-get-g…
# Hot topic NSW, .How will regions like NSW's Byron Shire fix their housing crisis?
Stephanie Small ABC (No paywall)If you're a regional Australian town surrounded by bush or farm land, but also in the grip of a worsening housing crisis, what's the fix? That's the question local governments are asking in places like in the NSW Byron Shire, where the homelessness rate is the worst in the state. One option is following other regional areas by building up instead of out, to help deliver the thousands of homes needed.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/pm/will-regions-like-nsw-…
# Hot topic, Audio NSW, .Regan’s affordable housing call
Northern Beaches Advocate (No paywall)Wakehurst MP Michael Regan has called for half of the Frenchs Forest town centre development to be affordable housing. With the relocation of The Forest High School to Allambie Heights underway, the path has been opened for the Frenchs Forest Place Strategy to move forward. The plan is for a new high-rise Frenchs Forest town centre that runs from Northern Beaches Hospital west towards Forest Way. The plan was developed by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) and received broad support from Northern Beaches Council. It included a 15 percent affordable housing allowance that would be imposed on developers.
https://www.northernbeachesadvocate.com.au/2024/02/16/regans-aff…
# Hot topic NSW, .Two missing words explain why Sydney’s making a terrible housing mistake
Cathy Sherry The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)In the mid-1990s, Professor Evan McKenzie, a US lawyer and political scientist, published a book called Privatopia. It charts the exponential rise of private residential communities, with extensive common property, run by residents sitting on owners corporations. Think the Real Housewives of Orange County. Or Breakfast Point in Sydney.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/two-missing-words-explain-wh…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Where landlords are amassing up to $56k extra rental income a year
Nila Sweeney Australian Financial Review (Paywall)Residential landlords in some inner-city and middle ring suburbs pocketed up to $56,000 extra rental income in the past 12 months as rents hit record highs across the major capital cities, data from SQM Research shows. Louis Christopher, SQM Research managing director, said rents would likely keep rising strongly across the country this year as vacancies fall further.
https://www.afr.com/property/residential/where-landlords-are-ama…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Tax on Airbnb, Stayz accommodation could boost NSW housing supply
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW government says a tax on short-stay accommodation including Airbnb and Stayz could encourage owners to shift their homes to long-term rentals, easing the housing shortage and raising revenue for homelessness services. The revenue measure is touted in a new government discussion paper on the short-term rental market, which Premier Chris Minns has vowed to review amid the worsening housing crisis.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/tax-on-airbnb-stayz-accommod…
# Legal significance NSW, .A loophole got New York City man a free hotel stay for five years until he claimed to own the building
By The Associated Press NBC News (USA) (No paywall)NEW YORK — For five years, a New York City man managed to live rent-free in a landmark Manhattan hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law. But prosecutors this week said Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed paperwork claiming ownership of the entire New Yorker Hotel building — and tried to charge another tenant rent. On Wednesday, he was arrested and charged with filing false property records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at his boyfriend’s apartment with guns and bullet-proof shields. As far as he is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one. “I said ’Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto recalled telling his boyfriend.
# Must read International, .