I’m wary of how diluted “affordable housing” means. Bypassing Council, VCAT and third party appeals are very tasty prizes for developers and I’m sure plenty would manipulate the definition of “affordable housing” to get a ticket to far less planning oversight, especially with the low bar of entry at 50 million. More housing is desperately needed, and NIMBY pushback has definitely been an issue, but I really hope the homes will actually be affordable, and that the Vic government planners will enforce good quality design, not boundary to boundary grossness with no setbacks or green space.
It’s difficult to have any faith in this government taking public housing needs seriously after how it has behaved since installation. Everything thus far has prioritised developers and shown near zero regard for community and amenity for public housing residents.
Sometimes it feels like they are trying to offload pesky public housing and wind down the whole department over time.
They’ve effectively privatised it. They’ve established a non-profit company called Building Communities they they’ve contracted out building and managing “social and affordable housing” to for the next forty years. The government will still own the land that the buildings are on, but housing will no longer be managed by Homes Victoria (which itself was spun off from the Department of Families Fairness and Housing Victoria to manage public housing). It all stinks, and it’s going to lead to worse outcomes for everyone.
With the tower sites they’re already flagging that it’ll only be about 1/3 public with the rest commercial meaning how much land is retained is in question. At a minimum public housing priorities will lose any strata vote.
There are good reasons not to build monolithic public housing but communities need to be retained and it would mean the scale would need to be even bigger. As it is it won’t even cover the wait lists.
There’s zero trust in this government when it comes to public housing and mostly for well founded reasons.
Honestly NIMBY busting laws are required regardless of immigration, given that the Covid related drop in rents, and it’s associated occupancy rate has revealed that people actually want space to live.
Affordability issues then mean that people then compromise on their housing situation. Hence there’s a very strong demand for housing even before immigration effects are taken into account.
Claiming nimby is an absolute false boogeyman when VCAT regularly ramroads over the top of local councils.
There are genuine nimbys, true - but more and more and more the narrative is being spun to blame them for the housing crisis and that’s flat out not true - it’s a scapegoating tactic that allows the actual culprits to continue exacerbating the issue. And no, it’s not a bad thing to push back against developments that fuck up your neighborhood.
I blame both NIMBY’s and Developers equally, and we need a multi-faceted solution.
VCAT overturning a councils rejection means that the development was legal in the first place. However as the developer has to spend time and money defending their case, the incentives to build at higher densities are reduced. We do need to look at ways of reducing this burden on medium density developments, so that their construction is made financially viable.
However developers are also scum, who are guilty of landbanking and drip feeding. I would be more than happy if a Gas Resource Permit style “Move it or lose it” clause was put on development applications. To avoid speculation on the gas market, if you make a new discovery, but don’t extract it in a reasonable time, then the government will force a sale to someone who can.
Ideally I would also like a switch to Japanese style planning, where there’s strict rules on overshadowing (you can’t overshadow without consent). But if you own the land, you can build anything residential you want.
Developments like the one that overshadowed backyards in Brunswick are blocked under Japanese planning laws. However density and non-cookie cutter architectural styles are encouraged by the fact that your only limitation is what you overshadow.
A VCAT hearing then takes time and money, reducing the incentive to build housing
not really. VCAT from a developers POV is a big fat “Fuck you council Imma gonna build it anyway” The legality very very rarely comes into it, it’s that councils are invested in and beholden to the people that actually live in the area, so there are bigger concerns than legality - it’ s extremely reasonable to object against bad builds - I’m not talking about those well-heeled cunts who want to maintain their class demographic. People live in the areas they do because of the attractiveness and amenities - and bad builds actively undermine these. The developers don’t care, they just want the money - so they will tout the selling points of the area while actively destroying them, because those selling points are a social concern - that they offload. You even see this with new developments on old farmland, they don’t upgrade the sewer system or roads because they can wave those off as not their problem - privatising the profits, socialising the costs.
VCAT overturning a councils rejection means that the development was legal in the first place.
An example of the fallacy of this would be something like the Greyhound - that was a key part of the queer community in Melbourne, a landmark in the area. People in the area - those that deal with this day to day - wanted it kept because it was a core part of the history and the society in the area. It provided a lot of resources. That’s not a legal concern though, the guys that owned it, well legally they could grind it up and snort if they wanted. There’s no heritage protection, so fuckit! It’s still a loss to the community though, and last I saw still a dead empty lot with the promised apartments nowhere in site (in fact now it’s going to be a “rental hub” - meaning that instead of a steady cornerstone we now have a rotating mess of people who aren’t invested in the community. Its a huge social loss, but still entirely legal
It is more of a symptom of a problem with the current system though.
Its way more easier to get approvals when you buy a commercial building (eg a pub), and turn it into a high rise, than it is to buy a residential block and put single story units in place of the house.
Hope that the new disputes mechanism has enforcement powers. Also, mandatory training for property managers is 💯 needed.
One thing I would love to see invoked - just for the fucking hilarity that would ensue - is a punishment for invalid breach notices. So many REAs would get absolutely buttfucked.
There should also be as part of the reform a certificate process for rental properties - think of it like a RWC. Before a property is allowed to be rented out a third party like the CAV goes through and certifies it fit for rental in accordance to minmum standards. You pass? well done, here’s your cert. You fail, GTFO. And if its found to be rented without certification or remediation of raised issues, you absolute penalise the fuck out of the owner. Fairly easy to enforce too, if somewhere has been flagged as unfit, someone sticks their head in every year or so, ain’t the owner living there? DOWN COMES THE HAMMER. Couple that with an actual enforced and checked vacant property penalisation and lot of shitty behaviour will dry up entirely.
Also having the ability to dob in a known dodgy landlord as a third party would be useful as fuck. At the moment everything is reliant on the tenant - who especially in the current environment is not going to risk the roof over their heads for a system that is proven won’t protect them.
Stop, I can only get so wet.
And punishment for illegal inspections, harassing tenants or trying to keep bonds. Or kicking tenants out to raise rent. Mmm
Yeh, let’s put more pressure to landlords so more of them go to AnBNB.
I don’t know about Victoria, but elsewhere we’ve seen laws, taxes, & rates change in ways specifically designed to disincentivise short-term accommodation, which is a good way of preventing that from happening while providing much-needed protections for tenants.
Victoria is adding a 7,5% tax on short term rentals.
Yeah I just saw that. I’m curious about it though, because the Guardian article described it as an “Australian-first”. It’s not clear to me what the levy is on.
But in Brisbane City Council, we’ve had a 50% increase to rates for short term accommodation since last financial year, up to 65% this year. That’s a much bigger number than 7.5%.
I’m assuming rates are the council rates (the ~$2000 you pay yearly if you own a property), while the Victoria tax is a tax on the actual income you make on the rental property?
Victoria tax is a tax on the actual income you make on the rental property
Okay I did a little more searching, and the ABC article about it seems a little more clear. They say:
The 7.5 per cent levy will apply to revenue from the platforms from January 1, 2025.
So basically as you say, except instead of being “a tax on the…income you make”, it’s a tax on the company’s revenue. Sounds good for revenue-raising purposes, but unless it drives Airbnb to increase the percent they take as a cut from houses that rent through them, it won’t have any direct impact on the choice of a property owner, since their revenue is unaffected. Of course, that wording is just ambiguous enough that it could still be a form of extra income tax, which would feel weird since that’s typically a federal responsibility.
Really, any of those ideas is conceivable. And I’m not sure if the lack of clarity is because of poor communication from the news organisations, poor communication from the Government itself, or if it’s because the plan is only in the early stages and the Government doesn’t actually know how it would be implemented yet.
