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
‘Shattered’: Residents rise from the sudden death of their ’hood
Harriet Alexander The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)There are communities that die slowly, with the closure of a mine or the re-routing of a road, and those that are erased with the speed of a bushfire. The obliteration of Randwick’s Eurimbla precinct, wedged between UNSW on one side and Prince of Wales Hospital on the other, was perfunctory. In 2017 officials started knocking on the residents’ doors. A date was given. They were promised fair prices for their homes, but there was no negotiating about the fact they had to move out. After all, the hospital was expanding and who could argue with that?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/shattered-residents-rise-fro…
# NSW, History, Housing market, Planning and development.Inspectors investigate five-tower apartment block amid building defect allegations
Laura Chung The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An apartment complex under construction in Sydney’s north-west has undergone an urgent inspection after allegations of serious building defects were aired by a whistleblower.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/inspectors-investigate-five-…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.NSW Building Commissioner says engineers behind Sydney towers with 'structural issues' must be 'accountable'
Josh Bavas ABC (No paywall)The NSW Building Commissioner says he will refer the principal engineers involved in a large Sydney residential development where "structural issues" were found to the industry's peak body. ... A team of inspectors from NSW Fair Trading has also reported finding "the existence of structural issues that would require specialist engineering advice" in the basement of two of the five proposed towers, following a separate inspection.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-14/engineers-of-castle-hill-…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Federal budget 2021 is a missed opportunity for aged care reform
Anne Connolly ABC (No paywall)The billions of extra dollars going into aged care has to improve the system, but it is not the "generational change" the Prime Minister is touting. When the royal commissioners into Aged Care Quality and Safety Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs wrapped up their $90 million, two-and-a-half-year inquiry into aged care, they had one wish: a "landmark Australian social policy reform" which would ensure well trained, well paid staff overseen by an independent auditor and with complete transparency for the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds given to the industry each year. Best calculation to achieve that: an extra $10 billion a year. What Australia received is almost $18 billion over five years, no guarantee of mandatory minimum training of workers, a refusal to lift wages, a bolstering of an inept regulator and continuing freedom for providers to spend money as they see fit.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-15/aged-care-reform-not-evid…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.Budget scheme leaves single-parent homebuyers a choice of one suburb
Catherine Hanrahan ABC (No paywall)It's designed to help single parents buy property, but in Sydney the federal government's plan to let people buy homes with a 2 per cent deposit doesn't leave much choice. In fact, an ABC analysis shows there's just one Harbour City suburb where a single mum or dad earning the average income would be able to service a home loan on that scheme ... While people in regional NSW will benefit, the changes are unlikely to be much help to Sydney buyers. ... [Eliza Owen, head of research in Australia for Core Logic] said the budget announcements reflected the government's ideological approach to the attitudes of both home owners and those locked out of the property market. They are trying to do this double act of maintaining asset prices while increasing home ownership at the same time.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-15/little-choice-for-single-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Regional NSW, Women.Building safety crisis sees 15% rise in social landlord maintenance spend
Dominic Brady Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Registered providers of social housing have increased repairs and maintenance spend by 15% in response to the building safety crisis, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has found. ... The regulator’s annual value for money metrics report showed that capitalised major repairs, total repairs and maintenance costs increased by 15% to £5.7bn between 2017 and 2020. ... Since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, in which 72 people were killed, widespread building safety defects have been discovered across the country’s private and social housing stock.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/building-safety-crisis…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Minimum habitability standards.Ministers maul Maribyrnong after councillors block housing project
Chloe Booker The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A stoush between the state government and a Labor-led council in Melbourne’s inner west has flared after councillors blocked a social housing project, despite the area having the state’s longest list of people waiting for a new home.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/ministers-maul-maribyrn…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, State Government, Students.Federal budget fails to address Australia’s housing shortage and homelessness, experts say
Jessica Sier The Guardian (No paywall)Housing affordability is likely to remain a crippling problem for Australia’s low-income earners, as community housing providers say Tuesday’s budget fails to address supply shortages and the rental crisis gripping the regions.
While the industry is relieved that housing affordability is on the national agenda, it says the government’s plan to provide $124.7m over two years to support homelessness and affordable housing falls short of the needed infrastructure spending.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/14/federal-b…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing market, Regional NSW.