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.
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Archive
More housing associations should adopt the gateway model to empower tenants
Carmen Simpson and Denise Fowler Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... At Phoenix, we continually review our approach to ensure that all our residents can be part of decision-making at every level. Resident Pat Fordham set Phoenix up by galvanising her neighbours to campaign for a different kind of housing association in south Lewisham, where residents would have control over the management of their homes and a real stake in the community. ... Our gateway model means that the majority of our board members are residents, and they truly lead our organisation. Our chair and vice-chair are residents and must be so under the terms of our constitution. The community gateway model empowers residents to take a central role in decision-making about the homes they live in and the services they use.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/more-housing-ass…
# International, Public and community housing.Your Property: Wealth boom | Affordability sinks | Reno tips | Floods drive insurance nightmare | SMSFs lean into property
Matthew Elmas, Melissa Jenkins, Sezen Bakan and Rod Myer The New Daily (No paywall)Selection of articles from this year ... some have been included in the 'Housing News Digest', some have not:
The bank of taxpayers? Fresh idea to fix Australia’s soaring housing costs
How home owners can profit from the ‘unbelievable’ property wealth boom
First-time buyers ‘priced out’ as house affordability sinks to new decade low
Get ready to glow – six ways to renovate without breaking the bank
Insurance nightmare for once sought- after riverside homes amid flooding
What experts think about the outlook for the property market during 2022
Self-managed super finds are pouring savings into real estate – here’s why
Housing Inquiry A Wake Up Call for ‘Aussie Dream’
Renee McKeown (Paywall)The Coalition government has blamed planning restrictions, “ballooning” developer contributions and stamp duty for Australia’s housing affordability crisis. The Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue into housing affordability and supply has handed down 16 recommendations. Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue chair Jason Falinski ... denied tax concessions were a major factor contributing to high prices placing the blame on state governments planning restrictions and supply. ... [A] dissenting report by the Labor members of the committee ... outlined the report's narrow focus on supply as the answer to fix all issues and that plenty of evidence had been rejected or ignored by the inquiry.
https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/inquiry-gives-wake-up…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development, Tax.Leaked documents reveal scope of tax reform Turnbull and Morrison rejected
James Massola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison walked away from Treasury proposals for sweeping tax changes that could have put more money in voters’ pockets and eased booming house prices, according to leaked Treasury documents. ... The documents reveal previously unpublished details of the breadth and scope of tax reform considered by the then-Prime Minister and Treasurer in the early months of the new government, some of which - such as increasing the GST and curbing negative gearing - had been broadly canvassed publicly at the time. ... Five separate options to wind back negative gearing tax concessions were canvassed by Treasury with Mr Turnbull, Mr Morrison and the cabinet, as was reducing the capital gains tax discount to 25 per cent ...
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/leaked-documents-reveal-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax.Melbourne’s inner-city rental prices on the up after a COVID-19 slump
Rachel Dexter The Age (Paywall)Inner-city Melbourne rents will exceed pre-pandemic prices before the end of the year, according to one property data provider, bringing the era of pandemic bargain prices to an end. ... The peak body for Victorian renters is also concerned about the impact short-term stays are having on supply and price. CEO of Tenants Victoria, Jennifer Beveridge, said the legal service had heard multiple accounts of tenants being asked to vacate, as the landlord wanted to list the home on Airbnb. She said the issue should be examined by policy-makers.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-s-inner-ci…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.Green houses: the great Australian dream can be a reality
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Builders are lobbying for houses to include more energy efficient features that make Australian homes greener. Home owners and architects say it’s possible to make small modifications to houses to improve the energy efficiency of conventional materials. ... But architects, environmental groups, many councils, tenants’ unions and social welfare groups say the current changes [to NatHERS] don’t go far enough. In a joint statement, they say delays of even three years would leave hundreds of thousands of households paying more in energy bills and incurring much greater costs to retrofit.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/green-houses-the-great-australia…
# Australia, Climate change, Fixtures - lights, aircon etc, Minimum habitability standards.We must fix our repairs problems – even if it means building fewer homes
Alison Inman Obe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... It’s shaming that tenants find their best chance at redress for repairs is asking a student to embarrass their landlord on social media. ... Armed only with a camera phone and a Twitter account, [Kwajo Tweneboa, the young social housing tenant] has pushed social housing to the top of the agenda in ways that must leave comms teams across the sector open-mouthed.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/we-must-fix-our-repairs-…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs.Most Sydney councils losing urban forest cover – how green is your neighbourhood?
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)More than half of Sydney’s councils have lost urban forest cover since 2013, as experts warn that suburbs lacking sufficient trees may become unliveable. Development pressures, poor planning and a failure to value trees have been blamed for the decreased tree canopy in some parts of Sydney even as councils develop urban greening strategies and the state government seeks to plant millions of trees by 2030.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/most-sydney-councils-losing-urba…
# NSW, Climate change, Local Government, Planning and development.