Page 3588 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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discourage the building of smaller, more affordable houses such as dual occupancies, duplexes and townhouses. This is a big problem for older people who are looking for somewhere more manageable than a whole suburban block but who would like a small garden and definitely would not like steps.
We need to find ways to build smaller, more affordable houses while at the same time protecting Canberra’s garden city character. The best way to do this is through planning changes that reduce the amount of block that can be built over and protect trees and houses while at the same time encourage smaller houses such as duplexes and townhouses. It is possible on the basis of Mr Coe’s speech that we are in agreement on this one. The government started the housing choices process to fix this problem in early 2018, but the community has seen no progress for almost 12 months. This process needs to get back on track.
I will now talk about the calls in paragraphs (5) and (6) of my amendment. I have designed these to be both worthy and supportable by—I hope—both the Labor and Liberal parties. I acknowledge that they are only modest changes. There is, of course, a lot more I would like to do, but I was trying with these calls to land on things the Assembly could agree on that we really could do to improve the supply of affordable housing in the ACT. Supporting the community housing sector to grow represents good value for government investment, and there is considerably more the government could do in this area.
Paragraph (5)(a) calls on the government to extend the pilot land tax concession program. This program has support from across the Assembly, but I am concerned that in its current form it is being set up to fail. The two-year limit on the trial will limit uptake. Landlords will only be able to offer limited leases and they will in general be forced to evict their current tenants and move to a community housing provider as their property manager. Then they will not know what they are going to do at the end of the two-year period, which would be getting down to a 19-month period. It really is not going to work for a landlord. I know only about a dozen houses have been rented via this program and I think that is the major reason why.
Paragraph (5)(b) deals with creating a four-year pipeline of land release to community housing providers so that they can plan for the future and Canberra can attract interstate providers. Paragraph (5)(c) tries to get the housing choices process back on track or at least started. A lot of work was done by many members of the community and, I am sure, ACTPLA to look at things we can do in Canberra that will have community acceptance to improve the affordability and environmental and social sustainability of our housing stock, and a degree of consensus was reached. That is what the housing choices process did.
It would benefit younger people and older people looking for smaller, more affordable homes, as well as the building industry. I am really hopeful that both the ALP and the Liberal Party can support this. My understanding is that the Master Builders Association would like to see the housing choices process back on track for the reasons I have just spoken about.
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