Planning Minister Steven Miles set to exercise powers and order Redland to draft new strategy for more housing

The State Government is poised to officially force a South East Queensland council to overhaul its lagging housing strategy.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles is poised to fire off a terse ministerial directive officially forcing a southside council to overhaul its lagging housing strategy.

The top-level order, expected as early as today or tomorrow, will force Redland City Council to overhaul its housing policy and explore land supply options in southern Thornlands.

The housing crisis issue will be raised on Friday at a roundtable meeting, ahead of next month’s Queensland Housing Summit.

In an unsigned draft of the directive seen by Quest Newspapers, Local Government and Planning Minister Mr Miles threatens to use his powers and get his department to undertake any necessary work with the council to foot the bill.

“The strategy must ensure the council plans for residential growth that is sufficiently diverse and that supports affordable housing outcomes,” the draft directive said.

“It must also assess the current housing stock and future supply ... using property-level base data, as at mid-2021.”

A copy of the draft directive from Planning Minister Steven Miles to Redland City Council.

News of the impending ministerial directive followed Redland City Council’s failure to meet an August 30 deadline to send Mr Miles an updated strategy outlining future land supply areas and detailing plans for housing diversity.

That triggered a bitter row last week over the council’s “outdated” policy, which Mr Miles said was partly to blame for the state’s unprecedented housing crisis.

It also raised the question about the council’s town plan, which may not be compliant as the state approved it on condition an updated housing plan would be drawn up using the latest population figures.

An Infrastructure Department spokesman said the state had told Redland “on a number of occasions” that its 2011 housing strategy was inadequate and based on outdated population data from 2006.

“It does not take into account significant population and housing challenges of the past decade.” the spokesman said.

“The current strategy identified the city would need 66,200 dwellings by 2031, however, as of 2021, there is already a total of 65,200 dwellings in the Redlands area.”

Steven Miles is poised to send Redland City Council a ministerial directive forcing the council to update its housing strategy.

Redland council said it was one of the few councils in southeast Queensland meeting its dwelling targets and a state land supply report found it had sufficient residential land.

It said there had been 9970 building approvals for all housing types across the city between 2011 and 2022, which was in line with all state government orders.

Last year, Redland’s population was estimated to be 161,730, and was growing at an annual rate of about 0.65 per cent, slower than Brisbane’s growth of 0.73 per cent. Redland also had a residential vacancy rate of approximately 0.4 per cent.

That compared with Logan’s population of 350,740 and growth rate of 1.84 per cent, largely due to more housing being built.

Redland City Council estimated resident population from 2006-2021. Data: ABS

The Planning Department spokesman said the state would continue to press Redland council on the need for a strategy to address land supply released and housing diversity.

Under state government guidelines, Redland must approve 17,200 new dwellings by 2041, including 12,500 on land already under development and 4700 homes on land yet to be released.

Tenants Queensland chief executive Penny Carr said an overhauled housing strategy in Redland would be a step in the right direction to solving the state’s housing crisis.

She said rental costs had soared 20 per cent in the past year in Logan and Ipswich and that would continue if all three tiers of government did not act now to stamp out gouging practices.

To do that, Ms Carr said all councils would have to open up new land supply, build more social housing and, most importantly, use current housing stock more efficiently.

She said stricter guidelines on short-term rental properties such as AirBNB, would also go a long way to solving housing shortages in places such as Redland’s North Stradbroke Island, where a rental squeeze and accommodation shortage exists despite plenty of holiday homes.

“We need to know who owns the state’s housing so fair decisions can be made to cut down the homeless rate and ensure vacancy rates are at a reasonable standard.

“A balanced market has a 3 per cent vacancy rate but in southeast Queensland the vacancy rate has been less than 1 per cent for more than five years.”

Ms Carr said new tenancy laws, which come into effect next month, would not dramatically change vacancy rates but would allow pet owners greater rights and bar landlords from kicking out a tenant without providing a reason.