Page 4849 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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live. This can have other benefits as well as the practicality of providing a roof over one’s head; it can build social connections and a sense of inclusion and enable people to stay where they have spent the last 40 or 50 years of their lives. This is working to a small extent in Canberra in the disability sphere and we would like to see it expanded.
These are some of the innovative but simple ideas we took to the election last year and ensured were entered in the parliamentary agreement, but there were a lot more canvassed in the housing summit, including creating flexible planning pathways based on demonstrating community benefit and community support rather than standard rules; ensuring that community councils are part of the public housing tender process to minimise community push-back on new public housing; providing short-term accommodation for workers in Canberra temporarily for major construction projects; using vacant buildings as temporary crisis accommodation; providing an emergency relief fund for people in private market rental arrears; facilitating the establishment of an indigenous controlled community housing provider; and repurposing larger ACT Housing properties into group houses and vice versa as demand changes.
All of these ideas have merit; the challenge is how they can be implemented. As well as having a strategy, we have to implement it and we have to have good plans, including moneys to do them. That is why my amendment changes the word “identify” to “implement” opportunities for innovative and collaborative partnerships. I suggest that another item of low-hanging fruit could be to develop suitable and up-to-date IT to enable easier transfers in public housing. I believe that at present that can take up to five years.
My amendment also calls for the housing inquiry and demonstration projects to inform new initiatives and existing policy. Earlier this year I put forward a motion to develop a demonstration housing precinct that will promote best practice environmental performance, including excellence in construction design quality; carbon neutral buildings; showcasing innovative planning and engagement approaches and housing products; and options for public and affordable housing.
Demonstration housing precincts are an approach where government partners with industry, the community and researchers to develop housing that is above normal standard. Through the precincts, innovative design, construction and planning processes are tested, the financial viability of new approaches is tested and buyers are able to demonstrate the demand for innovative housing. Industry skill levels grow through working on best-practice projects, and local industry capabilities are showcased. That provides a boost for the participating companies’ national profiles and marketing. It will be necessary to consider the possibilities that arise from the demonstration housing precinct, and hopefully the showcase will inform good, long-term solutions to affordable, accessible and environmentally sustainable housing for Canberrans.
Equally, as members would be aware, the planning and urban renewal committee is conducting an inquiry into housing in the ACT, in particular the interaction of population growth, housing affordability, housing diversity and design, consumer behaviour and the suburban and environmental impact of residential development.
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