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
$2 billion housing deal ripped up at abandoned Sydney towers
Madeleine Bower and James Willis Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A $2 billion agreement to build almost 5000 new homes in Sydney’s west has been torn up, with the State Government describing it as a “dud deal.” The 13-hectare site in Telopea, known by locals as the “Three Sisters”, will instead be refurbished and reopened as public housing, as a search begins for a new developer. An agreement to transform the three towers on Sturt Street was announced by the Coalition with Frasers Property Australia in 2019. The “Telopea Urban Renewal Project” promised to provide 4700 new homes, including 22 per cent for social housing, plus a new library and community centre.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/2-billion-housing-dea…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.Appalling details in Sydney rental slammed: ‘Is this illegal?’
Hayley Taylor 7 News (No paywall)A sublet vacancy in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs has been slammed after a picture of an unmade bed in a cramped space was shared online on Sunday by a social media user who asked if the arrangement was even legal. The room in the South Coogee sharehouse on Arden St — living with nine other people for $95 per week including bills — is “substantially cheaper than most other rooms available in the area” according to the Tenants’ Union, and comes with some “glaring red flags.”
https://7news.com.au/news/is-this-illegal-horrific-rental-in-coo…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent.Eviction rates highlight rental struggles in NSW’s outer suburbs
Rowan Crosby Elite Agent Magazine (No paywall)Tenants in Far Western NSW and outer Sydney suburbs are facing the highest risk of eviction, according to a heat map created by the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales. The map, based on NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) data, shows stark disparities in eviction rates across the state, with some areas experiencing significantly higher rates than others. According to the data, Bourke Shire, Central Darling, and Walcha had the highest proportion of eviction applications, at three per 100 rental households.
https://eliteagent.com/eviction-rates-highlight-rental-struggles…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Eviction, Rent.Revealed: The NSW housing reform that has disappointed most voters
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Voters overwhelmingly believe the NSW Labor government has failed to do enough to help tenants, as rental prices spiral and vacancy rates remain at an all-time low amid the housing crisis. More than 18 months after the Minns government came to office promising sweeping reforms to rental laws, including banning no-grounds evictions, Labor is yet to pass legislation protecting tenants from being kicked out of rental properties without “commonsense and reasonable reasons”.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/revealed-the-nsw-housing-ref…
# Must read NSW, Rent.‘A future of dead plants’: Pitch to scrap unit sunlight standards criticised
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)A call by the NSW Productivity Commission to remove a requirement that most apartments have some direct sunlight would create two classes of residents, critics say: those who can afford to live in the light and those who will dwell in the dark. The commission’s review of housing supply last month backed the relaxation of design requirements for apartments that its stakeholders, mostly builders and developers, argued would reduce costs and improve supply and affordability.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/a-future-of-dead-plants-pitc…
# Must read NSW, Rent.They built a Sydney suburb at a train station but nobody came
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When Leppington train station opened in February 2015, it was regarded as a rare Sydney example of how urban planning should work: build the infrastructure first, then the homes. But a decade later, it may serve as a warning of what not to do. Far from becoming the “Burwood of the south-west”, as urban planner David White dubbed it at the time, Leppington is still the end of a train line to nowhere.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/they-built-a-sydney-suburb-a…
# Hot topic NSW, .Homeless woman forced to pay $5,000 as council threatens to evict her from friend's property
Joe Attanasio Yahoo News (No paywall)A domestic violence survivor who battled for years to put a roof over her head is again facing homelessness after her local council's "ridiculous" demand. Geelong woman Teena Keys lost her business and fled an abusive marriage during the pandemic and as a result was forced to couch surf for three years around the state of Victoria, after being rejected from a total of 60 rental properties. Keys says she had all but run out of options when she decided to build a tiny home on her friend's 100-acre property in Anakie, about 73 kilometres southwest of Melbourne late last year.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/homeless-woman-forced-to-pay-5000-as-c…
# Hot topic Australia, Domestic violence, Eviction, Rent.Revealed: the Sydney suburbs set for explosive home price rises after rate cut
Aidan Devine news.com.au (No paywall)A much awaited interest rate cut could spark another explosion in home prices, adding over $30,000 to the average cost of properties in many Sydney suburbs in the first month alone, modelling has revealed. The analysis provided exclusively to the Saturday Telegraph showed Sydney had a history of being much more sensitive to rate falls than other cities, with previous cuts heralding in strong growth conditions. This uplift has tended to be immediate and the average boost to prices in the first month after previous Reserve Bank announcements of a cash rate cut was nearly 1.3-1.5 per cent in most suburbs.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/sydney-nsw/revealed-…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.