SEQ council’s emergency measure to help housing crisis

A South East Queensland council has passed an extraordinary motion to make it easier for the development of social, affordable and crisis accommodation.

Moreton Bay will hand over council land for new developments to house locals sleeping rough in an extraordinary response to an alarming surge in homelessness.

The South East Queensland local government passed a motion on Wednesday to offer land for social, affordable and crisis accommodation as Mayor Peter Flannery blasted “successive failures of government” for the crisis.

He said there were currently 1400 people experiencing homelessness in the council, where he said the number of people sleeping rough had surged 70 per cent in the 2021/22 financial year and a further 120 per cent in 2022/23.

The move will offer land through a “peppercorn lease” – a token fee typically of $1 to satisfy contractual legal requirements – and comes after the council’s pledge to waive development fees — meaning only the cost of construction will be needed to build homes for those in need.

“A key challenge to getting new social, affordable, and crisis housing built is the availability of land, so Moreton Bay Council today voted to help remove that hurdle by making some of our own land available under lease arrangements,,” Mr Flannery said.

Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery. Picture: Liam Kidston.

“Yes, this is technically the responsibility of the state and federal governments, but the current housing crisis is so bad that this council has decided to do everything we can.

“And while providing social housing may not be within council’s usual remit we are being left to deal with the resulting regulatory issues, public safety concerns, and in extreme cases the negative impact on public amenities.”

Mr Flannery expressed urgency in pushing forward with the construction of homes on council land and hopes to have a couple of sites out for expression of interest by Christmas.

Eligibility for the offer requires accommodation to be built on council land by 2027 and will be offered on a peppercorn lease for 50-years.

The Mayor said the move shows the council has an open door for those wanting to build homes after the local government passed a motion to allow a new lease type to be created specifically for social, affordable and crisis housing.

“We’re already waiving 100 per cent of all development fees and infrastructure charges in fifteen suburbs, in a radical attempt to incentivise private sector construction of affordable social housing,” he said.

“Because we want community housing providers and developers to know that Moreton Bay has a swag of incentives for them and we want them to know that we are ready to do business.

“Council only has a certain number of leavers to pull to help turn this situation around, so Moreton Bay is pulling all of those levers.”

The next step is for council to audit the land in the local government area to identify parcels suitable for construction.

The move to offer land is another sign the council is “really quite progressive”, homeless peak body Q Shelter’s policy manager Jackson Hills said.

He said Moreton Bay’s commitments placed the local government as a compelling drawcard for projects of social significance.

“I believe they have done this to maximise the opportunity for their region and to ensure these projects stack up financially in the high cost construction environment,” Mr Hills said.

“It also means they can capitalise on the state and federal funding in the system right now and deliver on the escalating need for affordable housing in the community.

“We are talking to more local councils across Queensland about taking a similar approach.”

QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said the urgency of the crisis required all levels of government to work together to “ pull every policy lever they have available to them”.“It’s good to see the Moreton Bay Council recognise the scale of the crisis in their area and respond with an initiative that paves the way for more social, affordable and crisis housing,” she said.

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon applauded the move by the council who she said was “playing their part” to deliver more social and affordable homes.

But she rejected the assertion from the Mayor that the disaster was partly due to a failure from the state government.

“We’ve always said every level of government has a role to play in making sure we unlock more supply,” she said.

“We have a record investment here in Queensland – we have the housing investment fund, which is working with both community housing providers, institutional investors (and) superannuation companies to really try and scale up the amount of stock that we need in the state.

“But I think it’s great that we have councils who are wanting to play their part and hope to see more to come.”