What is the Affordable Housing National Leading Practice Guide and Tool Kit?
The Affordable Housing National Leading Practice Guide and Tool Kit is a resource to help state housing, planning and local government practitioners and other key stakeholders work in partnership with private and not-for-profit developers to help provide affordable housing through the planning system.
This guide draws together recent work in Australia. Key information sources include working papers prepared for the Framework for National Action on Affordable Housing, Australia (NAAH), and research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and the Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and NSW (Richardson R, Phibbs P and Gurran N) 'Housing Kits'.
A full list of references is provided in the references section of this site.
The Leading Practice Guide is intended for a broad target audience: state, territory and local policy-makers, council planners, elected government officials, non-government organisations and other stakeholders.
This website has been developed to assist you in navigating through the Leading Practice Guide. A full PDF version is available.
Where did the Affordable Housing National Leading Practice Guide and Tool Kit originate?
The guide arises from a joint meeting of the Housing Ministers’ Conference (HMC) and the Local Government and Planning Ministers' Council (LGPMC) where the the issues facing all governments in the provision of affordable housing were acknowledged. Ministers agreed to adopt a Framework for National Action on Affordable Housing and made the following commitments:
- create a National Sector Development Plan for not-for-profit housing providers, which will enable them to participate in large scale affordable housing initiatives
- adopt a national approach to defining and analysing affordable housing need at geographic levels, which is reflected in planning policy and regulations and provides comparable standards of affordability
- review current housing subsidy streams and investigate the potential to strengthen the certainty of these in the light of the commitment to increase the role of the private sector and the development of the not-for-profit sector in delivering affordable housing
- identify mechanisms and policy initiatives that will deliver increased affordable home ownership and rental opportunities for low to moderate income households.
The second of these four key commitments calls for the planning systems of the states and territories to support affordable housing provision; this Leading Practice Guide is one of the agreed means of implementing this commitment.
The resources and guidance in the Affordable Housing National Leading Practice Guide and Tool Kit is not designed to be relied upon. Users of the guide should consider the individual circumstances of each project or policy, use other resources and take independent advice.
The key sections of the toolkit include:
1. Background
This section provides the context of the Framework for National Action on Affordable Housing Initiatives
2. The Planning Environment
This section describes the supportive legislative and policy environment, the regulatory context, state and regional policies and planning and local planning considerations.
3. Housing Needs Analysis
The housing needs analysis section articulates terminology adopted nationally for describing affordable housing and groups in housing need and a method for establishing indicative price benchmarks for affordable housing which have been agreed to by Australian Housing, Local Government and Planning Ministers. It also:
- outlines a national standard housing needs analysis methodology, for adaptation at state, regional, or local levels
- shows how to move from this analysis to strategies for affordable housing action
4. Choosing the Right Planning Mechanism
This section provides commentary on the likely scale of influence of planning mechanisms in different housing markets. Select the housing market below for more information.
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5. Planning Mechanisms
This section provides descriptions of six planning measures with commentary on implementation and effectiveness in relation to affordable housing.
6. Principles and Examples of Leading Practice
This section includes local and international examples to illustrate leading practice in delivering affordable housing through planning mechanisms. It also includes principles of leading practice and pitfalls to avoid
7. Delivering Affordable Housing
This section includes information about developing and managing and funding affordable housing in Australia
8. Glossary, Acronyms and References
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