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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
The neighbours desperate to stop building being demolished for luxury apartments
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)More than 50 residents and neighbours of a 1960s apartment building have protested the block’s proposed demolition in an extraordinary kerbside battle against developers they say could be a watershed moment for Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The furious community members of the block in Elizabeth Bay, one of six comprising cheap studios and one-bedroom units earmarked to be torn down and replaced with high-priced, oversized luxury apartments, crowded the pavement and road at an outdoor conciliation meeting.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-neighbours-desperate-to…
# Must read NSW, Eviction.From social housing to $1.5m for a studio: minister hits out at ‘dud deal’ sale of Sydney’s Sirius building
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)A decade ago the only way to secure a bed in Sydney’s brutalist icon, the Sirius building, was a proven need and time on the social housing waitlist. Now the price of admission starts at $1.55m – for a studio apartment. The last of the 76 apartments in the redeveloped complex in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge are on the market after the building was sold to a developer by the former Coalition state government for $150m in 2019. A two-bedroom in the soon-to-be-completed block starts at $3.2m and prospective owners would be asked for another $1.5m if they wanted a car park to accompany their Rocks abode.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/17/f…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Eviction, Public and community housing.NSW allocates $450 million for more than 400 build-to-rent homes for essential workers
Nick Dole ABC (No paywall)The Minns government will build apartment blocks for Sydney's essential workers, offering them cheap rent so they're not priced out of the city. Tuesday's budget will set aside $450 million to build more than 400 build-to-rent dwellings over the next three years. The homes will be offered to workers like teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters at a discount to the market rent. Premier Chris Minns said the government was thinking "outside the square" to improve affordability. "We're expecting big towers and they'll be exclusively for essential workers," Mr Minns said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-16/nsw-to-invest-450-million…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Occupants of empty buyback homes face eviction day
Mia Armitage Echo (No paywall)Members of Lismore’s Reclaim our Recovery community group called for a last-minute gathering of supporters this morning as people continued to occupy otherwise empty bought-back houses in North Lismore. Locals and travellers alike were said to be living in houses on Pine Street and elsewhere that officially belonged to the NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) thanks to their former owners’ participation in the Resilient Homes Program’s buyback scheme. RA head Mal Lanyon told ABC North Coast listeners last week bought-back homes would be managed on a case-by-case basis.
# Hot topic NSW, Disasters, Eviction.Changes to NSW land taxes to impact renters, industry says
Heath Parkes-Hupton news.com.au (No paywall)More landlords and investors could face higher costs under a government plan described by a senior real estate figure as a “tax grab by stealth”, which could exacerbate the strain on an already tight property market. The NSW government is set to announce the threshold at which its land taxes are triggered will be frozen at $1.075m, meaning more properties will be captured in coming years. Previously the tax-free threshold moved in line with property prices, with the changes forecast to raise an extra $1.5b for the state budget over the next four years.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/sydney-nsw/changes-t…
# Must read, Legal significance NSW, Rent.Concerns over Kanwal development
Coast Community News (No paywall)Member for Wyong David Harris has encouraged interested locals to submit their thoughts on a proposal to redevelop the Oasis Caravan Park at Kanwal to create 675 units in a series of buildings up to 12 storeys in height. He said he had concerns about what might happen to current residents. He spoke about the matter in Parliament in March and has since met with local businesspeople, the proponents, representatives from the Department of Planning and the Minister for Homes Rose Jackson. “Some of the issues are being addressed but there are still concerns,” Harris said on his Facebook page, as he urged residents to read the documents and submit their opinions – either for or against.
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2024/06/con…
# Hot topic NSW, Land lease communities, Rent.The magic number that tips the rental market in tenants’ favour
Jim Malo The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Australian tenants have not experienced a renters’ market in the past 20 years, other than during COVID lockdowns in some cities, which have baked-in market conditions that contribute to the rental crisis, experts say. Historical data shows that the country’s national vacancy rate has not fallen below 3 per cent since 2005, when the SQM Research records began. A rental market with a vacancy rate higher than 3 per cent was typically considered a renters’ market, tenancy advocacy groups said.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-magic-number-that-tips-…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media, Research alert Australia, .Coming home to Country
Rachel Mounsey ABC (No paywall)Diane Stokes Nampin’s rusty-looking block is scattered with broken-down cars, a weather-worn donga and a tumbled-down tin shed. Inside the shed Diane lives in, her body is slumped with grief in a plastic chair. It was a 44-degree day when her six-year-old grandson died suddenly of heart complications related to rheumatic heart disease (RHD). “It was his heart,” she says, her long fingers softly tapping her chest. “I raised him from little … you know?” “And now he’s gone.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-14/jurnkkurakurr-residents-f…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Utilities electricity water gas.