ADVICE OVER THE HOLIDAY PERIOD
Tenants Advice & Advocacy Services have limited availability over the holiday period. The Tenants' Union will operate a Tenancy Advice Hotline from Wednesday 18/12/2024 until Wednesday 8/1/2025 (excluding weekends and public holidays). The hours of operation are 10am-1pm and 2-5pm.
Get advice on: (02) 8117 3750 or 1800 251 101
Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
The metro will transform this Sydney suburb but not everyone’s on board
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)It’s approaching noon as Sonny Morgan smokes a cigarette, and his mate swigs a beer, while they perch on an outdoor table in the grounds of Waterloo’s public housing estate, metres from the dazzling station which opened as part of Sydney’s new $21.6 billion metro rail line hours earlier. “I’ve been on it already this morning,” Morgan says of the rail line. “It cost me nearly $5 to get to Central. That’s $10 here and back. It’s good, it’s just the price is too high.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-metro-will-transform-thi…
# Hot topic NSW, .State can’t afford to let market decide on workers’ housing
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When the state government announced its plan for transport-oriented development (TOD) around key Metro and train stations last year, it came with a promise of up to 15 per cent affordable housing. That would have been about one in seven apartments in each six-storey building, constructed to help working families take advantage of the city’s best suburban transport links. But, as Andrew Taylor reports, the reality will likely be far fewer new homes within the financial means of someone on a below-average income than were initially promised.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/state-can-t-afford-to-let-ma…
# Hot topic NSW, .Government faces anger over affordable housing target shortfalls
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Affordable housing in new residential developments around Sydney train stations could fall far short of the Minns government’s promised 15 per cent target, with some areas likely to include fewer than one in 30 homes built for lower-income earners. The NSW transport-oriented development (TOD) program aims to build tens of thousands of new homes around rail and metro stations. Planning Department data shows as little as 3 per cent of new dwellings in Bankstown, in the city’s south-west, and Kellyville and Bella Vista, in the north-west, must be affordable housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/government-faces-anger-over-…
# Hot topic NSW, .The shocking figure that reveals the depth of Sydney’s housing crisis
Matt Wade The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The number of building company failures in NSW has almost trebled over the past three years, hampering the sector’s capacity to meet ambitious targets to lift housing supply. Despite record house prices and soaring rents, 1408 NSW construction firms called in administrators during the year to June as inflation and higher interest disrupted the sector.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-shocking-figure-that-rev…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.How did Singapore achieve a home ownership rate of 90 per cent? Can Australia learn anything from it?
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)There's a country near Australia that has a home ownership rate of 90 per cent. Its government wants widespread home ownership so its citizens feel like they have a stake in the country. It has a tiny land mass, so the dominant housing type is high density flats, the majority of which are built by the country's Housing Development Board (HDB). The government finances the HDB's deficits and provides loans to the HDB so it can extend mortgage loans to homebuyers with an interest rate of 2.6 per cent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-18/singapore-homeownership-s…
# Hot topic International, .John Campbell: How well does the law protect tenants from 'bad' landlords?
John Campbell 1 News (No paywall)With almost a third of Kiwis renting, and legal changes affecting tenants afoot, the Tenancy Tribunal's role in protecting them is more crucial than ever. But how well does it fulfill that role now? John Campbell, reporting for Fair Go, meets some out-of-pocket tenants and goes in search of the landlord ordered by the Tribunal to pay them. On April 17, the Tenancy Tribunal awarded a total of $2400 to Rochelle Peck, a mother of two, who had been renting a home in Auckland.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/08/20/john-campbell-how-well-does-t…
# Must read International, Rent, Tribunal NCAT.A new era for public housing and landscape-led urbanism
Karakusevic Carson Architects (No paywall)Landscape within the realm of public housing estates has long been contested. Post-war neighbourhoods in particular possess a visible generosity of it: a strong legacy of the modernist-inspired planning of our cities, when acres of green space were created to promote communal forms of living and offset new densities. However, neglect, a sense of insecurity, species monoculture and hostile nearby uses such as car parking and busy roadways have rendered many landscapes unusable. Despite their generosity and original intention, some estate open spaces can play an active role in partitioning communities and severing neighbourhoods.
https://www.karakusevic-carson.com/research/a-new-era-for-public…
# Hot topic International, Public and community housing.Tenants kept awake by cockroaches ‘scuttling across ceiling’ awarded $12,000
Tracy Neal NZ Herald (No paywall)Tenants lived with a cockroach infestation so bad they were kept awake at night by the bugs “scuttling across the ceiling”. The insects also destroyed the original and then the replacement dishwasher in the $1300 weekly rental where the six tenants were blamed for the bug outbreak. They were also threatened with eviction if they did not pay more than $700 to replace a toilet they were blamed for breaking, and were left without a stove top for months before being asked to buy a replacement for $250. Their rent increased to $1400 per week on January 1 this year, and they moved out the following month.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tenants-kept-awake-by-cockroaches-…
# Must read International, Repairs, You want to leave.