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
Tenants feel forced onto fee-charging rent payment apps
Mary Ward The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The state’s tenants union says it is receiving weekly complaints about third-party payment platforms, expressing concern that desperate tenants were signing up for monthly fees on top of rent.
While apps such as RentPay and Rental Rewards, which charge service fees, have been on the market for a few years, Ray White agents are increasingly asking their tenants and landlords to use Ailo, a payment platform founded by former Ray White director Ben White.
Ailo is not owned by or affiliated with Ray White, although more than 13,000 of its properties have now been moved onto the platform, which can also be used by landlords to pay bills and manage repairs.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tenants-feel-forced-onto-fee…
# Must read, Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Privacy and access, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market.Interview: Rob Stokes on planning and housing and what you can’t undo
Tina Perinotto The Fifth Estate (No paywall)As a former New South Wales planning minister Rob Stokes makes an impression when he tackles his core subject matter. Possibly something that deeply disturbed those developers who prefer their government to remain under a dark dank blanket when it comes to the arcane intricacies of housing and planning.
The first thing Stokes tells The Fifth Estate when we caught up with him on Friday last week was to praise the current incumbent in his former job.
“Paul Scully is a good man,” he says. “He is well motivated and he has a big job and I know the complexity of the thing and the last thing you need is people chucking stones from the sidelines. I start from a position that if it [housing] was that simple we would have solved it.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/design/interview-rob-st…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Planning and development, State Government.Skyrocketing rental costs drive Mudgee locals out of their home town
Kenji Sato ABC (No paywall)Karina Roberts says repeated rent hikes have left her family languishing in debt as the cost of living outstrips their income.
The 46-year-old cleaner lives in a government-subsidised house in the NSW country town of Mudgee but still cannot afford the mounting bills.
The mother-of-four was paying $186 per week when she moved in six years ago but is now paying $432 per week.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/locals-forced-to-leave-mu…
# Hot topic NSW, Personal stories, Planning and development, Regional NSW.Patrick’s apartment block has defects. He has nightmares of being buried beneath rubble
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Every time IT manager Patrick Quintal leaves work to travel home, he feels sick with dread that his apartment building may no longer be standing. Each night when he goes to sleep, he dreams about waking up buried beneath rubble.
One of his neighbours, Michael Jones, has worries about the safety of his wife and two small children almost constantly on his mind amid fears that their 10-storey development in south-west Sydney could prove the next disastrous Mascot Towers.
“It could potentially be on the same level as Mascot Towers,” said Quintal, 29, comparing their troubled complex, Vicinity at Canterbury, to the sinking building that massive structural defects have rendered unliveable since 2019. “The number that’s been thrown around to repair our building is around $50 million.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/patrick-s-apartment-block-h…
# Hot topic NSW, Home ownership, Planning and development, State Government.Why is it so hard for Local Aboriginal Land Councils to develop land when the public needs are huge?
Naama Blatman The Conversation (No paywall)Some of the largest landowners across New South Wales are Local Aboriginal Land Councils. Given the acute needs for housing and infrastructure, it’s time the state government enabled these land councils to play a greater role in development.
According to the Greater Cities Commission’s outgoing chief commissioner, Geoff Roberts, Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALC) are the largest landowners in three of the region’s six cities from Newcastle in the north to Wollongong in the south.
Roberts told me the commission’s strategic plans simply cannot be carried out without embedding in them Aboriginal values and perspectives. “We cannot move forward, without going back.” And by back, he meant returning to where it all began with European invasion.
https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-for-local-aborigin…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Planning and development, State Government.A Sydney council ‘delivered’ 23 affordable homes in 14 years but none are occupied
Michael Koziol and Michael McGowan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The failure of the state’s affordable housing policies has been laid bare after a Sydney council revealed it has “delivered” just 23 affordable rentals in 14 years, and none are actually built or occupied yet.
Documents tabled by Woollahra Council in the city’s eastern suburbs confirmed no occupation certificates have been issued for the two dozen affordable dwellings it has approved since 2009.
The report canvassed affordable dwellings approved under state government affordable rental housing policies, which give developers extra height and floor space for affordable homes, and voluntary planning agreements between developers and the council.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-sydney-council-delivered-2…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Planning and development, State Government.Batemans Bay housing advocate nominated for NAIDOC award says 'need keeps multiplying'
Vanessa Milton ABC (No paywall)When Tom Slockee was growing up, his family lived in a hut made from hessian bags and a dirt floor.
"They were shacks, if you like, but they were our homes, in the bush." Mr Slockee said.
His mother was a Butchulla woman and his father a South Sea Islander, the son of a slave taken by Australian authorities from Vanuatu. They lived in a tight-knit Aboriginal and Islander community on Bundjalung country on the NSW north coast.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-01/batemans-bay-aboriginal-h…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Aboriginal renters, Housing affordability, Planning and development.‘It’s choking us’: how interest rates are forcing Australians to sell their homes
Mostafa Rachwani The Guardian (No paywall)Andre Lattouf bought his first home in the middle of last year but after facing eight interest rate rises he is already looking to sell. “It’s choking us,” the father of three says. “It’s frustrating and sad. We spent so much time renovating this place and putting so much into it, but my mortgage repayments have almost doubled and it’s becoming a joke.”
On Tuesday the Reserve Bank of Australia paused its interest rate hikes for only the second time this year, leaving the cash rate at 4.1% – the highest in 11 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/04/its-choki…
# Hot topic NSW, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.