Greens welcome Affordable Housing Strategy

Submitted by Louise Sales on Wed, 11/05/2011 - 15:20

The WA Government’s State Affordable Housing Strategy is a strong step in the right direction says Hon. Lynn MacLaren MLC, the WA Greens Spokesperson on Housing.

“Will the Government now commit the funding and political will to ensure that its goals are met?” she asks. “With recent comments from the Premier demonstrating just how ill-informed and out-of-touch he is, we are really hoping that Minister Buswell can convince Cabinet to make the necessary investment.”

 

 

 

 

The strategy commits the WA Government to:

  • A 15 percent affordable housing quota on government land and housing developments
  • Department of Housing affordable land subdivisions 80 percent below the median land price
  • At least 20,000 affordable housing opportunities by 2020
  • More social housing, affordable rentals and home ownership opportunities over ten years including:
  • 8,300 more low key deposit Keystart and shared-equity home loans
  • 5,500 subsidised private rental opportunities
  • 3,500 more social houses by 2013
  • 1,000 more social and affordable dwellings generated by growth of the community housing sector
  • 32,000 more affordable housing lots through the Department of Housing
  • More affordable housing for key workers in the regions

While the strategy is an important first step, Ms MacLaren says it could go further and is calling for:

  • A 20 percent affordable housing quota on all land and housing developments
  • The tightening up of the Residential Tenancies Act to ensure:
  • the introduction of rent caps to ensure that rents are not increased by more than CPI annually
  • An end to ‘no cause’ evictions
  • A review of the ‘R Codes’ with a view to amending or rescinding those that are a barrier to the provision of affordable housing
  • An urban growth boundary to constrain further residential outer urban sprawl where interest rate rises and increases in other costs of living, including petrol and utilities, have a disproportionate effect on lower income households

There are also barriers to affordable housing at the Federal and Local Government level, so Lynn is calling on the State Government to:

  • advocate for a review of the Commonwealth Tax system as it relates to, encourages and protects:
  • personal residential housing overconsumption,
  • House and land speculation
  • the exemption of owner-occupied housing from tax and
  • the generous tax deductibility of housing investment from other income streams
  • develop Model Scheme Text to help Local Governments overcome resistance by vested individual personal interests to the development of affordable housing.

Unlike the current Government, the Greens do believe that more social housing is necessary and achievable.

“Housing is one of the basic needs in life – for many people it isn’t a wealth growth strategy. Recent WA State Governments seem to have forgotten this,” concluded Ms MacLaren