Ballina affordable housing project at Old Depot site fails to win council approval

A bid to create affordable housing for Ballina’s hospitality, aged care and emergency service workers has failed to win support. Here is why.

A bid to create affordable housing at The Old Depot site in Tamarin Drive, Ballina, has not received council support.

Concerns about cost shifting between state and local government have killed off a bid to develop an affordable housing project at the Old Depot site in Ballina.

Ballina Shire councillor Jeff Johnson had suggested the council ask the state government for support to develop an affordable housing project on six hectares in Tamarin Drive.

The new dwellings were not to be sold, but would instead be managed by local housing providers and offered as long-term rental accommodation for workers in key industries such as hospitality, aged care and emergency services.

Council meeting minutes said they were workers who were increasingly being squeezed out of the housing market by rising rental costs and a lack of affordable housing options.

The proposal included “a joint venture model with the state government, community housing providers and council financing the development of the site”.

Ballina councillor Jeff Johnson raised the motion. Photo Contributed

At last week’s council meeting, Mr Johnson said the council needed “to go to our local members and the premier and say – here is your policy, here is the block of land that council is currently using, you keep the land, we’ll help facilitate the development”.

“The sooner we get a project off the ground, the better,” he said.

The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment confirmed the council could compulsorily purchase the land through the Land Acquisition Act, at market value.

The council was hoping to be able to purchase the land at a nominal, discounted value.

But the motion only gathered support from councillors Sharon Parry, Keith Williams and Mr Johnson.

Councillors David Wright, Phillip Meehan, Eoin Johnston, Stephen McCarthy, Sharon Cadwallader and Ben Smith voted against the motion.

Mrs Cadwallader said she could not support the proposal.

“All this is doing is giving approval to the state government to shift the cost, their responsibility for social housing onto local councils,” she said.

“The state government’s policy encourages this type of partnerships, but not with councils, because at the end of the day there has to be a profit.”

Councillor Nathan Willis was absent from the meeting.