As the cost of local housing skyrockets into unaffordability, finding ways to create more housing stock and make sure key workers can still live locally was at the heart of a regional exploration tour today by Landcom boss, John Brogden.

As the CEO of the NSW Government’s housing organisation, Mr Brogden has teamed up with State MP Janelle Saffin, local Councils and community housing providers to find solutions to a problem that he said “is not going to solve itself without interventions”.

“We have a big issue in Northern NSW,” Mr Brogden said.

“Right now we’ve seen a considerable increase in existing house prices and it’s pushing people out of the market who are key workers, like teachers, nurses, cleaners and people who work in coffee shops. We also have mums over 55 in housing distress, living in cars and caravans.

“It’s gotten worse quickly and it will get worse as tourists come back. Unless we want coffee to be $15 a cup, we need to address this.

“People want to be able to age here. Now even the Sydneysiders’ dream of living in a more affordable regional area is jeopardised by the enormous cost of housing.”

Partnerships

The key to making change, according to MP Saffin, is creating partnerships with all people who have housing in their portfolios – and addressing the barriers that slow down the processes of building more housing stock.

Mr Brogden said Landcom’s role is developing out land and providing land supply - but also providing it affordably and sustainably while working with locals leaders. By 2024, 20% of its housing will be affordable housing.

While the housing issue is a complex one and there are no quick fixes for the people in housing distress now, Mr Brogden said the will of Councils, government and community organisations to join together to make change is there. 

State Member for Tweed Geoff Provest said the issue affects every electorate and “every little bit helps if we work together as a team”.

How might the partnerships work?

As the housing heavyweights prepared to embark on a tour of potential local housing sites in the region Mr Brogden said he was keen to demonstrate how it will work.

“Council’s know which land is available – and Landcom might put money in with a piece of council land and work with local community housing provider who can access money from the federal government through housing finance corp,” he said.

“We put in our development skills, council provides the land and community housing provides the expertise and extra funding. We also want to work with community organisations like RSLs.

“We also have the opportunity to use surplus state government land.”

Challenges

While the task may seem difficult, Mr Brogden said “every little thing makes a difference”.

“One challenge is that we need a workforce here to build houses and they are busy already – so how do we access these skills?

“We need to identify community groups we can work with and Councils need to speed up the development approval process.”

Land banking

Ms Saffin said another challenge was land banking – where people buy land and keep it without developing it. She said she had brought the issue up with the Regional taskforce for the government to consider it.

Council challenges

Mr Provest said when it comes to the work that Councils are able to do, the “whole planning process needs to be overhauled”.

“Council can’t afford the infrastructure costs of water and sewage,” he said. “And now, electricity providers want upfront fees for before land is developed. We need to alleviate the costs involved.

“In Tweed, the fees we get for processing DAs don’t match the cost of developing – they haven’t changed in over a decade. “It also got worse last week when IPART released the rate peggings.

“Some of the DAs takes 3 to 6 months to get a house approved, and in Queensland, it takes 28 days.”

Symbolic

“Today was symbolic,” Mr Provest said. “With John’s leadership and working with Janelle, we can work together to alleviate this problem and take some of the pressure off councils.”