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
Houses floating away as result of storm
ABC (No paywall)Houses are destroyed and some are floating away as [Hurricane] Ian's eyewall hammers southwest Florida.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-29/live-news-blog-the-loop-h…
# Video International, Housing market.As the government gears up for its housing summit, this Queensland mother is losing hope of having a home again
Meg Bolton ABC (No paywall)A mother who has been couch surfing with her five-year-old son on the Sunshine Coast since November, fears she "will never have a home again" after unsuccessfully applying for more than 200 rental properties. I don't feel safe anymore. I feel hopeless; every day is a struggle just not to give up," Ms Guyatt said. "I can't see myself ever getting a house again." Ms Guyatt said the situation has had a detrimental impact on her son's development and prevented her from booking NDIS-funded appointments because she had no fixed address.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-27/housing-crisis-sunshine-c…
# Australia, Disability, Homelessness.Italian prosecutors investigate 18 parties in connection with Milan cladding fire
Peter Apps Inside Housing (Paywall)Italian prosecutors have announced that 18 parties connected to the design, construction and management of a tower block which was involved in a devastating fire last August have been investigated for the crime of ‘culpable disaster’. ... In a statement issued earlier this month, the public prosecutor at the Court of Milan called the lack of any deaths in the Torre del Moro fire “miraculous” and said it was “certainly determined by the fact that it was the afternoon of a hot Sunday in late August and most residents of the condominiums were not at home”.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/italian-prosecutors-in…
# International, Asbestos, lead, hazardous materials, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Lismore Council estimates $500 million spend on retreat plan for flood-affected homes
Bronwyn Herbert ABC (No paywall)The general manager of Lismore City Council believes some low-lying homes in the flood plain may need to be compulsorily acquired by government — at a potential cost of about half a billion dollars — if people won't move. John Walker says there is community support for state government buybacks and relocation of flood-affected homes, but not everyone wants to go.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-27/lismore-council-housing-s…
# NSW, Housing market, Local Government, State Government.Western Australia's rental squeeze making it near impossible to attract enough workers
Rebecca Turner ABC (No paywall)Western Australia has found itself starving for workers and hungry for homes for them to live in, just over six months after opening its borders to the world. In what appears a cruel irony, Western Australia is particularly desperate for construction workers — the very carpenters, plumbers and painters needed to build the homes to house in-demand workers for the industry. So, how do you get more homes if you do not have the workers to build them? How do you attract workers from interstate or overseas if fewer than one in 100 rental properties in Perth is vacant? These questions illustrate the exquisite dilemma that Western Australia — with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and a tight housing market — faces.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-28/housing-rental-squeeze-co…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Work, employment.Real estate agents say granny flat rentals push has tax implications, won’t ease Queensland housing crisis
Chloe Chomicki ABC (No paywall)The Queensland government's bid to ease housing pressure by allowing owners to put granny flats up for rent could have tax implications and would do little to relieve the market, industry representatives say.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-28/granny-flat-rentals-wont-…
# Australia, Rent, Granny flats, studios, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Developer levy changes scrapped after pressure from local councils
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW government has dumped a suite of contentious changes to developer levies recommended by the Productivity Commission, avoiding a protracted fight with local councils including Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore ahead of the state election. The reforms – which the government initially said would fix a broken system and unlock up to $12 billion in productivity benefits over 20 years – concerned contributions paid by landowners and developers for public infrastructure such as roads, parks and utilities.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developer-levy-changes-scrap…
# NSW, Local Government, Planning and development.What if we championed housing like Cerdà’s Barcelona, Haussmann’s Paris, or Belgravia in London
Chris Johnson The Fifth Estate (No paywall)The recent 2022 Demographia report of housing affordability across 92 cities listed Sydney as the second least affordable city after Hong Kong. The report measures how many years of average income are needed to purchase an average home with anything over five years as being severely unaffordable. Sydney sits the second worse at 15.3 years with London at eight years and New York at 7.1 years. Housing supply in Sydney is down and clearly something needs to be done to get more homes built.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/what-if-w…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, Sydney.