Page 1767 - Week 06 - Thursday, 30 July 2020
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Each year the ACT government prepares and publishes a four-year indicative land release program. This plan is an important link in how the ACT government delivers on the strategic directions in the ACT planning strategy and the housing strategy and is a key driver for the ACT infrastructure plan.
The work in getting land ready to release is complex, requiring rigorous analysis which takes many years to complete. It can take up to 10 years to undertake a range of planning, environment, infrastructure and due diligence investigations to satisfy the many legislative requirements. Of course, we engage the Canberra community and listen to what Canberrans have to say about how our city should grow and change, as we did in preparing the planning strategy.
The government’s approach to land release aims to deliver affordable housing, choice and diversity, stimulate urban renewal where it is planned and appropriate, and support a competitive land development and construction industry to create and maintain jobs for Canberrans. As the Chief Minister outlined, there is ample supply of land in the pipeline to be sold in a range of ways to prospective buyers, both private developers and government.
There has been much commentary about the price of land. It is simplistic to say that the price of land in Canberra is only about how we do our land release. I think we can agree that releasing an appropriate supply of land is only one part of the solution to affordability. There have to be other policy levers and actions that work together to achieve this.
The government has continued to prioritise residential property support measures to improve housing affordability, the availability of affordable renting dwellings and to help more people move from tenancy to home ownership. The ACT housing strategy, which was launched in October 2018, sets the strategic vision for housing in the ACT for the next decade to guide policy, planning and the delivery of appropriate housing for every ACT household at all income levels.
One of the aims of the housing strategy is the delivery of affordable rental housing. Another goal of the housing strategy focuses on increasing affordable home ownership. Under this goal, the ACT government has dedicated 15 per cent of all new residential land released to public, community and affordable housing.
In 2019-20 a total of 628 dwellings were allocated under this target in the ILRP, consisting of 488 affordable dwellings, 80 community housing dwellings and 60 public housing dwellings. As you can see, Madam Assistant Speaker, our planning, land release and housing policies are highly integrated and work together to achieve a compact city that provides a range of accommodation choices as our population grows.
Finally, I would like to comment on the request that we do not bulldoze Kowen Forest and the Tuggeranong natural grasslands west of the Murrumbidgee for suburban development. We know how much Canberrans value our surrounding landscape. We hear those opposite talk about protecting green space, yet every time they talk about land release, they talk about building on our sensitive landscapes.
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