Cr Simon Crawford
Across the state, people are grappling with the high cost of housing. At a local level, approximately 30 per cent of residents living in Maribyrnong, Braybrook, and Footscray are experiencing rental stress, and 32.8 per cent of households were paying high mortgage repayments ($2,600 per month or more ) according to the ABS, Census of Population and Housing 2021. With the median house price at $957,750 last year and higher interest rates, we can expect these figures to be significantly higher in today’s market.
Council recently considered a planning application for a residential development in Footscray. It was generally a good application with an environmentally sustainable design, lots of bike parking and not much car parking to encourage active transport, along with a significant amount of affordable housing.
But when we say affordable housing, what does that mean? Policymakers often speak of ‘affordable housing and social housing’ and ways to boost their supply – but the terms are often interchangeable and poorly understood.
In Victoria, affordable housing is supposed to meet the needs of households with a very low, or moderate income, and includes social housing. According to the Planning and Environment Act 1987, individuals earning up to $20,770 fall in the very low income range, $29,710 to $47,630 is the low income range, and $47,631 to $71,450 is considered moderate income.
Many of these people include our essential workers (e.g. teachers, nurses and police officers), we need to ensure housing for these people or we will not be able to provide essential services. Government should probably just ensure these workers are paid better but that is another matter.
Given the high median price of homes, once you crunch the numbers, only individuals in the moderate income range would have been able to afford the ‘affordable housing’ supplied in the residential development planning application we recently considered. However, this isn’t a criticism of the developer – they are using the state government’s guidelines on what is considered affordable.
Lack of affordable housing remains an issue in all corners of the country, this is not a matter council can resolve. I am also aware there is a trend appearing of skilled tradespeople not working in their trade and doing unskilled labouring jobs on the big build for higher wages, there needs to be equity for trades people and government has a role to facilitate this.
Governments also need to work together to ensure land owners actually build on their land instead of ‘land banking’ (including the governments themselves).
Recognising the confusion surrounding the term ‘affordable housing’, there needs to be better guidelines in place to ensure homes are truly affordable. Let’s ensure that ‘affordable housing’ is accessible to those in the lower end of the income range – we need places where everyone can rent or buy on lower incomes.
