Central Coast Housing Forum: Region is gripped by affordability crisis

Half the population can’t afford a home, thousands of renters face being “displaced” and industry is being crippled — this isn’t a dystopian future, it’s reality for a regional NSW community.

Forget Sydney, people will have to commute to the Central Coast for work with the pandemic pushing home ownership beyond the reach of more than half of the population while thousands of renters face being “displaced”, a forum has heard.

Business NSW in partnership with Regional Development Australia Central Coast and Pacific Link Housing held the first “housing forum” on the coast since the Covid pandemic sent economic shockwaves across the globe and inflated local estate prices to artificial highs.

More than 100 business and community leaders, council staff and state government politicians gathered at Red Tree Theatre, Tuggerah, to hear how dire housing affordability has become in the region and what was driving the situation.

The forum heard 52 per cent of the region’s working population fit into the low to very low income bracket with many retail and hospitality workers unlikely to ever be able to afford a home.

Central Coast Housing Forum panel members (left-right) Key 2 Realty business manager Larissa Llowarch, Central Coast Health CEO Scott McLachlan, Borg Manufacturing planning and development manager Mark Daniels and University of Newcastle acting dean Professor Michael Bowyer. Picture: NewsLocal

Key 2 Realty business manager Larissa Llowarch said rental vacancy had been hovering under one per cent on the coast with as few as 600 properties available at any one time.

Of those she said just 81 properties were for low income families with three bedrooms.

She said renters faced being “displaced” and forced to move further away with horror stories emerging of landlords jacking up rents and people offering to pay rent six months to a year upfront just to secure a rental.

Terrigal State Liberal MP Adam Crouch said it was indicative of the “changing face of the Central Coast” where the “days of blanket opposition” to development had to stop and the region had to look at “embracing” high rise living.

Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) president and local architect Caine King said the coast would need 43,000 new dwellings to cope with projected population growth but only a fraction of those were being developed as affordable.

The coast will need thousands of more dwellings but only a fraction of them are affordable. File image

He said off all the development applications (DAs) approved for the revitalisation of Gosford’s CBD in 2016-17 — when there were generous incentives offered to developers in terms of floor-space ratio and building heights — just 30 per cent of projects got off the ground.

He said streamlining approvals was important but “delivering the projects” was the most important.

Mr King said interestingly, 50 per cent of apartments being purchased off the plan in Gosford were by “bought by locals”.

“So when people say `no’ to development, ironically we’re saying no to ourselves,” he said.

He said besides rezoning greenfield sites for housing estates, in-fill development was going to be critical to accommodating the shortfall with areas such at Erina and Tuggerah capable of going to “six-eight storeys”.

The only way is up for the coast’s housing market with in-fill development critical, the forum heard. (File image)

Central Coast Health CEO Scott McLachlan said as one of the region’s largest employers it was becoming increasingly difficult to attract skilled staff with housing one of the biggest turn offs.

Meanwhile affordable housing provider Pacific Link’s CEO Ian Lynch told the forum low income housing stock had to be treated like “critical infrastructure” and planned for in the same way as major roads or hospitals.

NSW Planning Minister Anthony Roberts announced the government would be establishing an Urban Development Program (UDP) committee for the Central Coast similar to those operating in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven and greater Newcastle areas.

He said the UDP committee would be chaired by the Planning Department with representatives from across Central Coast Council, Darkinjung Aboriginal Land Council and local stakeholders.

“The role of this committee will be to identify and remove barriers and disincentives for in-fill housing, oversee a pipeline of housing and unlock employment land on the Central Coast including tracking the supply and identifying opportunities for acceleration, he said.

Mr Roberts said the result would ensure “five years of zoned and developable land” on the coast for industry to “get cracking building more homes”.