NSW Labor leader Chris Minns' pledge to target 30 per cent affordable housing on developments on surplus NSW government land has been lauded as a step in the right direction on the housing crisis gripping the state, but in the Illawarra the dearth of available land could mean this policy does little to address skyrocketing rents.
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Minns' commitment on Tuesday is well above what is normally targeted in NSW - with targets of between five and ten per cent being typical - and CEO of the Housing Trust Michele Adair welcomed the commitment.
"The fact that they've established a target is very reassuring, however, I feel quite strongly that we can and should do better than 30 per cent, given the depth of the crisis and the fact that it is actually government land," she said.
In the Illawarra, with some of the most unaffordable rental properties and fastest rising rents of any region in NSW, an injection of affordable and social housing is sorely needed, however it is unclear how many homes Mr Minns' pledge would deliver.
In his speech, Mr Minns targeted land along transport corridors as prime for redevelopment into housing, as it is government-owned and well located in terms of accessibility. How much of this land in the Illawarra is available is unknown.
"It is legitimately difficult across the Illawarra, because we've got, you know, the escarpment on one side, the coast on the other and lots of stuff in between that is flood prone," Ms Adair said.
One sliver of land on the western side of the rail line north of Thirroul station is undeveloped, but other parcels are hard to come by with development right up to the rail line throughout much of the Illawarra.
In other parts of the Illawarra there are some parcels of unused land. The former Bulli Hospital was recently turned over by NSW Health to state-government owned developer Landcom for redevelopment into a series of townhouses and small houses, with a target of 10 per cent affordable housing.
In Helensburgh, about 200 lots sit undeveloped, zoned for environmental management, after a long battle between the private owners, Wollongong City Council and the Joint Regional Planning Panel. Located south of Otford Road, the lots are privately owned by 94 people or companies.
In the absence of available Crown Land groups such as Business Illawarra have called on Wollongong council to turn over its surplus land for affordable housing. Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said the council had little to spare.
"A lot of our land has already been utilised for other purposes, that's not necessarily surplus."
Ms Adair said that land with low-value uses, such as open air car parks in the Wollongong CBD, could be more productively utilised.
The current Wollongong Draft Housing Strategy makes no mention of repurposing surplus council-owned land for affordable housing but instead says "Wollongong will strive to increase affordability in the housing market, and to ensure housing provides for a wide range of incomes, people with a disability and for our ageing population."
Shoalhaven City Council recently transferred five lots of council-owned land at Bomaderry to a community housing provider for an "exemplar" affordable housing development. Cr Bradbery said Wollongong Council did not have that option.
"We don't have a lot of land such as the Shoalhaven has. We haven't got the flexibility that the Shoalhaven has."
Whether on publicly owned or privately owned land, Ms Adair said affordable housing often got squeezed out of new developments due to profit pressures and that what was needed was public investment in affordable and social housing.
"We can't expect to make a profit out of social housing transactions. They're not profitable, if they were, everybody would be doing it."
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