Queensland Housing Summit: Church land could be used to help solve housing crisis on Gold Coast

Plans are in the works to use church land to help tackle the Gold Coast’s worsening housing crisis.

Church land could be the key to addressing the Gold Coast’s worsening housing crisis, according to a homeless advocacy group.

A city priest has agreed, but said repurposing land must be done in a way that will not alarm parishioners.

In a submission to the Queensland Housing Summit, Q Shelter has proposed engaging faith leaders “to negotiate the release of properties available now and to identify a future pipeline of land and buildings” for social and affordable housing.

The submission suggests church leaders should be convened to “scale up and structure” the release of properties to address the housing crisis.

Q Shelter policy and strategic engagement manager Jackson Hills. Picture: Peter Carruthers

Q Shelter manager of policy and strategic engagement Jackson Hills said gaining access to church land statewide was key to addressing the crisis and faith groups were “interested in being part of the housing solution”.

“Churches have historically been part of social and affordable housing (provision) in Queensland, so it’s an obvious sort of connection to make,” he said.

“They have considerable land space in the Queensland areas. … it seems the way to unlock land in this housing crisis.”

The idea of using church land was proposed at a roundtable discussion in September convened by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Brisbane Archdiocese, which covers “all of south east Queensland”, including the Gold Coast, was among stakeholders at the meeting.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk recently convened a roundtable discussion in which the idea of using church land was proposed. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

The Archdiocese said in a statement it would “certainly” look at how land could be used to “support social justice outcomes and further our mission”.

Mr Hills said he expected many more faith groups would be represented at the Summit and it would produce an “agreed approach” to solving the crisis.

“There’s a piece of work that needs to occur with the faith-based groups that needs to identify the opportunities across Queensland and the Gold Coast and look at the opportunities for further use,” he said.

“I think we’re sensitive to that being a good mix of use that works with the communities.

“I don’t think anyone wants to move too quickly, there needs to be a considered approach.”

The Bulletin contacted a number of local Catholic parishes for comment.

Burleigh Heads Catholic Parish priest Father Morgan Batt said while a representative from smaller Coast churches wouldn’t be attending the Summit, the church had been “interested in affordable housing for a long time”.

Burleigh Heads Catholic Parish priest Father Morgan Batt in a photo taken during the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Jerad Williams

“We’ve got affordable housing across the whole diocese and we’ve done an audit – incomplete – to see if we can repurpose more (property),” he said.

Fr Batt said there was a need to inform parishioners the plan was not to “close churches to make affordable housing”, but to consider old schools, parishes, or vacant land.

“There is land and there are buildings around that can be repurposed for social housing, if the government is able to allow us,” Fr Batt said, adding that issue was the “biggest stumbling block”.

But he’s hopeful there will be a “trickle down” through policy and committees into the community “and hopefully it can move from there.”

“The Archbishop has asked (the churches to assist),” he said.

“Everyone deserves a home. So what more can we do to allow that?”

Originally published as Queensland Housing Summit: Church land could be used to help solve housing crisis on Gold Coast