Rod Ritchie, Cooroy Residents and Ratepayers Association president
The supply of affordable and social housing is not just local, it’s a nation-wide, indeed world-wide problem.
Noosa has long been a place where development, density and urban sprawl were held in check.
That’s what makes us attractive now to residents, investors and tourists.
Solving the social and affordable housing crises is not a matter of building a few extra houses right now. We need systemic change that will produce results.
Holiday areas such as Sunshine Coast, Byron, Cairns, and many others, also have housing problems, and the solutions at a local government level are limited. However, there are levers that could be pulled to boost affordable rental housing supply relatively quickly.
Since Noosa has around 5000 empty houses, from this large pool of property owners could be found those who could be encouraged to bring their dwellings onto the property market via a financial incentive.
Rates subsidies
We already have a rates differential for short-term accommodation, so rates relief for home-owners who sign up to moving their unoccupied houses to the rental pool, or who voluntarily change their homes from STA to permanent rentals, is a workable and economic solution.
For, say, a modest sum of $1.6m annually, council could give $4000 rate relief to 400 property owners who could be incentivised to let their properties for long-term accommodation. This subsidy would either be for new rentals, or for changing over from STA to regular renting.
A subsidy to the tune of $3000 per property would see this council investment release 533 properties to the long-term rental market. The rate subsidy could last as long as the home is in the long-term rental pool.
If only five per cent of property owners [of the 5000 empty houses] took up the offer, that would release 250 homes for long-term accommodation.
The winners would be homeowners sick of the vagaries of STA rentals, registered and approved resort owners who have lost trade to the STA phenomenon, and residents in our suburbs who have witnessed their amenity decline along with the social fabric of their once-vibrant streets.
We forget that the volunteers, workers, retirees and all the other diverse inhabitants of a dynamic shire need somewhere affordable to live. We would be on the path to recovering our community, one that is being fractured and distorted.
On the one hand we’re bemoaning a housing shortage, on the other we’re contributing to it by subsidising increased visitation to a destination that is bursting at the seams. While Destination Byron is not funded by any level of government, Noosa subsidises its tourism industry association to the tune of $2.6m annually. We’re encouraging yet more marketing for a destination that arguably doesn’t need it.
We are, in effect, compounding the housing crisis.
Making sure we have a reasonable quota of affordable and social housing will help alleviate homelessness and move us toward affordable housing solutions. It will also create a resident-friendly shire.
