Calls for Australia to introduce mandatory affordable housing quotas

ABC NEWS (Australia)

As housing costs continue to skyrocket, it's becoming increasingly difficult for Australians on low and medium incomes to find affordable accommodation in capital cities. There are renewed calls for us to follow the lead of global cities like London by introducing mandatory affordable housing quotas in all new developments.

Transcript

00:00Wow, so this is it?

00:03This is it, that's my intercom.

00:05Carrie-Anne Huddleston is settling in to her new affordable housing apartment in inner

00:09Sydney's Waterloo.

00:11The relief has been amazing.

00:13And then I had my family through and the tears, you know, the tears of joy.

00:20Like I do feel like I've won the lotto.

00:23That's how I feel.

00:24Faced with being unable to pay the city's skyrocketing rents, she'd found herself bouncing

00:29between the homes of family and friends.

00:31It has been so hard and so confronting and it's just the reality.

00:38Her new home is in an apartment block built and managed by community housing provider

00:42City West.

00:43Rents are capped at 30% of income to help people including care workers and older single

00:48women live there.

00:49This project has been partly made possible by a mandatory affordable housing contribution

00:54the City of Sydney imposes on new developments.

00:56Developers must either deliver affordable homes themselves or put money into a fund that

01:02does.

01:02Mandatory schemes are few and far between in Australia where most states rely on incentive

01:07programs that offer developers bonus floor space or extra stories in exchange for delivering

01:12affordable housing.

01:14But there are calls for that to change.

01:15The research shows that incentive schemes only work in certain markets and they are a very

01:22haphazard way of delivering affordable housing.

01:26Many housing advocates want mandatory affordable housing quotas in all new developments.

01:31They can be flexible, they can be site dependent but they need to be mandatory for them to work.

01:38I think the range needs to sit somewhere between 5% and 20%.

01:43But plenty of developers warn against it.

01:46More likely than not a mandatory position is going to make that product unfeasible and so

01:50therefore the housing project or apartment building won't even start.

01:54Advocates of mandatory schemes say there have been game changers in overseas cities like

01:59London and there's no reason they wouldn't work here.

02:01The one reform that would make a big difference in terms of delivering affordable housing hasn't

02:08seemed to be on the table.

02:09Something for policy makers to ponder.

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