Qld housing crisis: Govt set to compel developers to include social, affordable accommodation

The state government is set to escalate its war with the building industry with a “comprehensive” solution to the housing crisis.

Developers could be compelled to include social and affordable housing in new projects in a “comprehensive” new state government housing plan — a move set to escalate its war with the building industry.

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Mail, Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon revealed the government was preparing a long-term plan to respond to the housing crisis plaguing the state.

She said the wide-ranging approach would be of a similar scale to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s landmark energy and jobs plan, and could include setting targets for councils to build a minimum number of social and affordable homes.

Another option being considered by government is ­inclusionary planing, which would require suitable developments to include a mandatory portion of social and affordable dwellings – a strategy employed in a range of ­locations such as New York.

The government is investigating which approach would best to provide a sustainable supply of homes before consulting with stakeholders.

But either move would be a significant expansion of the ­existing requirement for new builds to include mandatory ­affordable housing, which ­currently only applies to about 30 priority development areas across the state.

“With developments, we need to make sure there’s a proportion of affordability,” Ms Scanlon said.

“We’ve got to work through what that number and percentage looks like and that may be different in different areas, for obvious reasons. But it’s a conversation I think we have to have.”

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon. Picture: Tara Croser

Ms Scanlon said it was too soon to reveal the potential number or portion of developments set aside for struggling Queenslanders but the government insisted it would be less imposing than a Greens strategy proposed earlier this year.

Greens MP Amy MacMahon’s plan would require property developers to set aside one in every four new apartments as public housing – policy the Property Council said would “actually increase the overall cost of delivering housing and would have flow-on impacts to sale and rental prices”.

The state government has faced fierce and repeated backlash for its slow construction of social housing.

But Ms Scanlon said the current crisis was unique given that the critically low supply had created a new cohort of homeless who were working but priced out of the market and forced into sleeping in tents and cars.

She said this growing number of Queenslanders would bebetter suited to affordable housing rather than public housing, with options including build-to-rent schemes, rent-controlled strategies, and homes with subsidised leases offered through housing providers.

“That’s what we’re talking about with councils right now, particularly the South East Queensland regional planning, but more broadly planning,” Ms Scanlon said.

“We’re looking at the targets we’ve set out around how many dwellings need to be approved.

“How can we ensure there is a proportion of those that are ideally social and affordable so that workers can live in the place they work?

“We need to get the balance right.

“We need to make sure that we unlock supply but part of that conversation needs to be what is also affordable.”