Noosa Council is set to introduce a range of incentives to further encourage the local supply of smaller and more affordable housing options.
The suite of financial incentives includes waiving infrastructure charges for secondary dwellings to encourage more people to build and rent out granny flats on their land.
“Secondary dwellings, or granny flats, are a sustainable way to provide more homes and we hope by removing the infrastructure charges, which are typically several thousand dollars per application, will see more people build them and offer them for rent,” Mayor Frank Wilkie said.
Council will also waive development application fees for not-for-profit community housing providers where the development caters entirely for affordable rental housing.
Private developers too will also be able to seek waived fees and charges for any long-term affordable rental premises component included within new developments.
“We realise that building affordable rental premises needs to stack up financially given the cost of land and construction, so these incentives will help,” Cr Wilkie said.
The suite of financial incentives ratified by Council at Thursday’s Ordinary meeting is among a raft of actions Council is taking in response to the growing housing crisis.
“In November 2022 we adopted the Noosa Housing Strategy committing Council to a range of actions to help tackle the local housing crisis and many of these have already been delivered.”
Council is working with community housing provider Coast2Bay to provide affordable housing on a Council site in Cooroy, plus investigating other Council-owned sites in Tewantin and Noosa Heads.
“Boosting supply of smaller, more affordable properties for key workers, older people and small households is a key intent of our proposed planning scheme amendments, which are currently before the Minister awaiting approval,” Cr Wilkie said.
Council recently began a new monitoring program to track emerging housing challenges. It sets targets and measures for housing stock and building approvals, median rents, rental vacancies, social housing, land use planning, housing stress and unmet housing need, plus rental affordability for low-to-moderate income households.
