Uni, church offer Palaszczuk emergency accommodation options

Griffith uni and the church have offered to step in and help the Queensland Premier’s emergency housing crisis.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at a housing roundtable on Friday. Picture: Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Griffith University has offered a vacant block of student accommodation to the Queensland government for emergency housing while the Catholic Church scouts land options to help remedy the state’s housing crisis.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk hosted a housing roundtable on Friday with industry bodies and organisations to help address the state’s worsening rental crisis and the shrinking pipeline of new properties.

Ms Palaszczuk said the government recognised housing is a very complex issue and called for community assistance.

“We are now asking Queenslanders out there – business, organisations, church groups – if you have any properties or land that can help us, we will work with you,” she said.

The 200-bed student accommodation facility at Griffith University’s Mt Gravatt campus, in Brisbane’s south, will be repurposed over the next six months to make the rooms available to those needing emergency accommodation.

An additional 90 blocks of land across the state belonging to the Catholic Church were also flagged as opportunities to build accommodation.

Deputy Premier and Infrastructure and Planning Minister Steven Miles described the university’s contribution as valuable and will allow a quick response to address emergency housing needs in an environment of rising rents.

“There was a consensus really that in an environment where there is a shortage of builders and building supplies, and where building costs are escalating, the best early gains are in repurposing under-utilised buildings that are already built.”

The Palaszczuk will host a Housing Summit on October 20.

Some of ideas being explored would be the introduction of minimum requirements for developers to include affordable and community housing within new projects and the feasibility of prefabricated homes.

The introduction of new taxes for vacant properties and those used for short-stay accommodation was also raised as a discussion point at next month’s gathering, said Queensland treasurer Cameron Dick. He said abolishing the state’s new land tax for interstate investors was not on the table and that it is unlikely to impact the rental market.

“No one raised closing the interstate land tax loophole as an issue in relation to affordability because there is an agreement, people understand the real pressure is on labour, land and supply,” Mr Dick said.

The Treasurer added that historically, input costs are unlikely to impact rental costs.

On Thursday, Mr Miles stepped in to take over the housing strategy of Redlands City Council, east of Brisbane, which he said was outdated and did not take into account the high levels of interstate migration in recent years.

The deputy premier said other councils are also being watched to ensure localised strategies are up to date.