Facilitating Affordable Housing Projects

Council can facilitate specific housing projects to address local housing needs by:

• encouraging or initiating projects incorporating affordable housing or housing for special needs groups by identifying suitable sites, conducting feasibility assessments, negotiating with land owners and bringing together interested developers and managers, streamlining the development approval process; 
• negotiating with other government bodies to use surplus land holdings;
• working with social housing landlords to promote new, mixed residential developments within or near large social housing estates, through changed planning controls that encourage new residential development configurations, infill residential development or development at higher densities;
• contributing land or funds towards affordable housing projects, perhaps to leverage other sources of government and private finance for affordable housing and to attract an affordable housing project to the area. (For example, funds could be provided to a local housing provider, which has access to other funding sources. The local housing provider could take responsibility for the acquisition and management of housing under an arrangement that also ensures that council’s housing objectives are met);
• establishing a housing trust fund to enable pooling resources (such as any money held in the Affordable Housing Fund generated through planning mechanisms and through SEPP No 10) with adjoining councils and not-for-profit organisations to enable a project of a viable size to be undertaken; 
• advocating the provision of some housing units within larger developments for acquisition at cost price or below market value by an affordable housing provider or under council’s affordable housing program;
• offering further support for not-for-profit housing providers’ projects to strengthen their capacity and facilitate their operations (including financial incentives such as rate reductions or rebates, or giving priority to local providers in the management of any affordable housing funded through local planning contributions to council);
• engaging a community housing organisation as tenancy and property manager for affordable housing opportunities created by planning strategies to ensure that any affordable housing generated is actually providing housing to people in need. For example, a developer could agree to provide a number of units capped at an affordable rental for lower-income households for a specified number of years. These properties could be head leased to a local provider that would take responsibility for identifying eligible tenants and managing the property and tenancy for the agreed period. Similarly, if affordable housing were to be acquired by council, it could be head leased or transferred to a not-for-profit provider. Councils may also wish to involve local community housing providers when developing relevant planning provisions;
• introducing support for affordable housing projects that meet identified occupancy and affordability criteria.  A development proposal that meets the requirements for an “affordable housing project” could become eligible for a range of assistance, such as planning incentives in the form of density bonuses, expert planning advice, support with conducting community consultation and financial incentives (like reduced fees and section 94 contributions). Any state or federal government assistance available (such as incentives for boarding houses) or other support (as may be provided through the Centre for Affordable Housing, for example) could also be included in the package.

For more on affordable housing projects, see Addressing Affordable Housing