Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio says city is in ‘housing crisis’, backs developers to push forward with more subdivisions

The rate at which houses are selling in Toowoomba has prompted Mayor Paul Antonio to call the situation a “crisis”, urging developers to push forward with more land releases.

TRC Mayor Paul Antonio.

TOOWOOMBA Mayor Paul Antonio has given his strongest indication he wants to work with the development industry further to help ease the “housing crisis” facing the city.

Cr Antonio made strong comments at the Toowoomba Regional Council’s committee meeting on Tuesday, saying there was enormous demand for detached housing in the Garden City and continuing concerns about future land supply.

Toowoomba’s current median house price of $365,000 is up more than 20 per cent from the same time last year, and real estate agents have flagged continued tight vacancy rates will put pressure on rent across 2021.

Cr Antonio said he wanted to see more subdivisions across the greater Toowoomba area, adding that the council was looking at possibly expanding its priority infrastructure area.

“We’re seeing houses selling very quickly, though we’re seeing the median price of houses as still in a good place,” he said after the meeting.

“We would work with any developers to help them on their journey.

“There may be some opportunities to bring some of those areas forward, but I’m not promising anything.

“All I’m saying is I think there is opportunity for an expansion of the (developable) Toowoomba area, because people want to live in regional Australia.”

In response to Cr Antonio’s concern about a housing shortage, planning and development general manager Stewart Somers said there were no issues with current land supply and that the real shortage was in the design and construction areas.

“There is high demand for housing within the existing built area of Toowoomba, there are ways and means of increasing the amount of housing within our existing urban areas,” he said.

“Through increased density, done carefully it can be quite a good way of increasing housing in that area.

“The developers at the moment are building their next stages to try and meet that demand, but there is naturally a lag, building the greenfields sites takes time.

“There is no shortage of land at the moment, the existing estates and developers are proceeding with the construction of the next stages.

“The hold up is through the lack of materials (and) services (like) the tight situation with getting professional consulting services, like surveyors.”