Griffith mayor Doug Curran says regional homes crisis will get worse without government support

A Riverina council says it has plans for more than 2500 new homes but the projects are in limbo due to a lack of State Government support. Here’s the latest.

A Riverina council says it has plans for more than 2500 new homes but the projects are in limbo due to a lack of State Government support.

Griffith mayor Doug Curran said the council had undertaken extensive masterplanning but repeated submissions to government for financial backing had fallen on deaf ears.

“From what I can see, the government is making a lot of noise about fixing housing in the Sydney area and is channelling a lot of money into that,” Cr Curran said.

“The big money is being spent in the metro locations. Out here in regional NSW we don’t have the infrastructure to support housing growth.

“We’re not just asking for money; we’re saying we have the solutions to a large part of the housing crisis and we just need the state government to be more innovative and open minded in the way it thinks. This will produce better outcomes for everyone.”

Griffith City Council said it has 2500 new homes in limbo.

Cr Curran said he met regularly with the mayors of 15 major regional cities across NSW.

“They’re all saying exactly the same thing. We have the will and we have the vision but we don’t have the support of the State Government,” he said.

Griffith City Mayor Doug Curran.

The mayor, who has been a Griffith councillor for 17 years, said the local housing shortage was impacting businesses and making life hard for any organisation that employed staff.

“Council has just employed a new general manager and a new director of finance and both had difficulties finding a home here,” he said.

“And they’re both people on fairly good wages, but for those on more moderate incomes, the situation is quite dire.”

Member for Murray Helen Dalton said Griffith had been struggling with severe housing shortages for more than a decade.

Member for Murray Helen Dalton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Ms Dalton said only between 40-80 new homes were built annually in Griffith, down from a peak of 250 a year 10 years ago.

“This limited growth has caused skyrocketing rents, declining economic activity and rising homelessness,” Ms Dalton said in a statement earlier this year to welcome $10m in Federal Government infrastructure funding to the city.

In the nearby Cootamundra electorate, State Member Steph Cooke said government inaction on funding water infrastructure meant the National Housing Accord commitment to build 55,000 homes in regional NSW would fail.

A report by the Riverina and Murray Joint Organisation of Councils said housing remained a top issue for local government in the region.

Even councils without significant population growth were facing critical shortages, the report said.

According to a property data service, Griffith has a vacancy rate of .7 per cent compared to 1.6 per cent for Sydney

Homelessness NSW says Griffith ranked in the top 10 for rates of homelessness in regional NSW, with 83.4 people ranked as homeless for every 10,000 residents.

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