Page 4086 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
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high levels of demand, comprising 55,000 square metres of commercial land and 78,000 square metres of industrial land. To ensure that industrial land is available in future years, the government is undertaking two major planning studies of vacant land in Hume and Fyshwick.
The land release strategy is designed to complement and support the government’s affordable housing action plan 2007, which was released in April 2007. The action plan is a package of initiatives that will assist in relieving upward pressure on house prices by boosting the supply of rental accommodation, easing entry into the market for home buyers, placing greater emphasis on community and not-for-profit housing and making more effective use of the territory’s public housing.
In particular, a major strategy of the action plan is the release of more land onto the market. The action plan also requires 15 per cent of blocks released each year to target house and land packages within the $200,000 to $300,000 price range, with 10 per cent of land priced from $60,000 to $120,000.
As the Assembly is aware, the government has recently increased the number of residential sites to be released from 2,200 to 3,200 to meet strong levels of demand. In addition, the private sector is expected to complete in excess of 1,000 multi-unit apartments.
The ACT government has accelerated its residential land release program, which is aimed at delivering land well above demand levels in order to not only meet underlying demand but also absorb any unmet demand, have a positive impact on housing affordability, and allow the government to develop an inventory of serviced sites and build a supply of release ready sites which are available for sale within a short time frame. But success will take time. As I said before, few Canberrans would be applauding if the upshot of our strategy were to drive down the value of the investment for thousands upon thousands of Canberra households.
The current land release strategy calls for the release of sufficient sites to meet a demand for between 11,000 and 14,000 residential housing sites over the next five years. Recent large residential land releases include west Macgregor in April 2007, an englobo release of 550 dwellings sold to the Village Building Co; the Woden east joint venture with Hindmarsh in April 2007, with 500 dwellings to be delivered over the next seven years; and the Crace joint venture with Crace Developments, sold in November, for 1,200 dwellings to be delivered over the next five years, 15 per cent of which will be affordable.
Upcoming large land releases for residential include Casey 1,with 700 blocks to be released next week as an englobo sale; section 63 in the city, with an auction next week, including a residential component; and the Forde joint venture with Forde Developments Pty Ltd with its ongoing land releases.
Upcoming LDA residential sales include Bridgewater at Franklin, with 1,400 blocks in total from February 2008, with some 200 blocks to be released via ballot. There will be future ballots in March and April 2008 at Bonner, which will have 2,300 blocks in total, with the first release from stage 1 of Bonner in May 2008; and
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