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
‘Wild west’: Australia’s would-be tenants asked about tattoos and social media as calls grow for regulation
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)There are growing calls to regulate the personal information real estate agents can request from potential tenants, with renters asked to hand over 12 months’ worth of bank statements, their personal social media profiles and in one case, whether they had prominent tattoos.
Paris Zarmairian was applying for a rental at the end of May in Sydney when her agent asked her to provide 12 months’ worth of bank statements.
The sole trader works as a consultant and advocate in the disability sector, and makes enough to comfortably cover the rent.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/12/wild-west…
# Must read, Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Discrimination, Privacy and access, Personal stories.Essential workers priced out of housing near Sydney workplaces face even longer commutes
Mostafa Rachwani The Guardian (No paywall)Essential workers in New South Wales such as teachers and nurses are being priced out of housing in suburbs near their workplaces and are facing longer commutes, new data reveals.
The data, provided by the Australian Urban Observatory and analysed by Guardian Australia, shows many essential workers are clustered in areas where housing is cheaper, but also that they face displacement from these areas as housing costs rise.
The data shows that essential workers in NSW are concentrated in LGAs with a majority of low-income households, including the Central Coast, Canterbury-Bankstown, Penrith, Liverpool and Campbeltown. These LGAs also have some of the highest rates of people living in community housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/08/essential…
# Must read NSW, Affordable housing, Housing affordability, Planning and development.The push to turn city office blocks into apartments
Carolyn Cummins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The yawning space in office towers across capital cities thanks to flexible working practices post COVID-19 has reignited the debate about whether these half-empty, billion-dollar valued skyscrapers can be converted into apartments.
With demand for housing reaching near breaking point and swaths of offices sitting idle, experts say it makes sense to revisit the issue. The premium offices are not seen as candidates, but the lower-graded C and D sites on the city fringe are considered ripe for conversion.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-push-to-turn-city-…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.NSW is recruiting for one of the state's toughest jobs — the successful applicant faces a massive task
Ashleigh Raper ABC (No paywall)The state's new rental commissioner will need to channel Christopher Pyne's "I'm a fixer" vibes.
The former federal education minister's infamous proclamation eight years ago was in reference to how he ensured a trouble-plagued higher education package got through the senate.
The task ahead of the new NSW rental commissioner will be far more complex.
Indeed, it's looking like one of the most difficult jobs in the state.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-10/analysis-nsw-rental-commi…
# Hot topic NSW, Campaigns and law reform, NSW Fair Trading, State Government.Minister looks to rework Waterloo South
Geoff Turnbull The South Sydney Herald (No paywall)When the current stage of the previous government’s procurement process for Waterloo South ends in about a month, the new NSW government will review the proposal to see how it can be turned into something that Labor can support. This was the key message delivered by Minister Rose Jackson at a REDWatch housing forum on June 5, 2023.
Under the current stage of the procurement process inherited by the incoming NSW Labor government, interest from four potential development consortiums is to be reduced to two by mid-2023. Minister Jackson told the meeting that “we aren’t able to stop that without massive compensation to the participants in that process and potentially we want to see what comes out of it”.
https://southsydneyherald.com.au/minister-looks-to-rework-waterl…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Planning and development, State Government.Fact sheet: Proposed 82 Wentworth Park Road development
Action for Public Housing Action for Public Housing (No paywall)82 Wentworth Park Road is a 35-year old public housing complex in Glebe. There are currently 17 public housing dwellings (12 one bedroom and 5 three bedroom units) on the site. More than 1500 people have signed an Action for Public Housing petition calling on the government to save 82WPR. More than 370 individuals submitted objections to the development application during the exhibition period.
https://a4ph.substack.com/p/fact-sheet-proposed-82-wentworth?utm…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability.Key issues for the 58th Parliament - Social and affordable housing
Lenny Roth and Damian Gilyana NSW Government (No paywall)Social and affordable housing provides an important safety net for those who cannot afford housing in the general market. In 2014 a parliamentary committee noted evidence
suggesting that NSW was in ‘a social housing crisis, with insufficient social housing
properties to match the level of current demand and future need.’1 It is likely that the
situation has worsened since then. Demand for this type of housing has increased as the cost of renting in the general market has risen significantly.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/Social-an…
# Research alert NSW, Affordable housing, Housing affordability, State Government.Inside the Greens’ housing reform strategy
Mike Seccombe The Saturday Paper (No paywall)Kos Samaras ended 14 years working for Labor as a strategist and campaign director years ago, but he doesn’t mind giving his old employer a bit of advice.
In a nutshell, it is this: housing is a huge issue with voters, Labor’s policy response is not cutting through, and the Greens are coming to get them.
These days Samaras is director of the polling, research and political strategy outfit RedBridge Group. The things his focus groups are telling him lead him to think housing affordability, and in particular rental affordability, could see Labor suffer the same fate as the conservative parties did when they lost a swag of heartland seats to teal independents. Except next time, the likely winners will be Greens.
“Housing, to the generation the Greens are talking to, which is mostly people under the age of 45, is just as important as climate change now. And the electoral impacts will be potentially just as profound as they were for climate in [the election of] 2022,” says Samaras.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2023/06/10/ins…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Federal Government.