Page 1614 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 8 May 2018
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This section of the act is very important to the ACT Greens. The reason the targets are in the legislation is that we got them there when the CRA-SLA legislation came to the Assembly last year.
These targets are important to housing affordability policy in the ACT because they make visible whether or not new suburbs and major urban renewal areas will include any affordable housing. They also give groups like ACTCOSS and ACT Shelter an indication of whether the ACT’s affordable, community and public housing stock is likely to be increasing or decreasing overall.
The data that is needed out of the determination of the target is twofold. Firstly, people need to be able to calculate a percentage of each land release that is affordable, community and/or public housing. Secondly, people need to be able to calculate the overall percentages of affordable, community and public housing across the whole land release program.
The government has identified that the way that the targets are currently structured as a percentage causes them some operational problems. For example, if a developer is to provide 50 per cent affordable housing on an indicative yield of 100 units, that would be 50 affordable units. However, if the developer then decides to replace some of the units with townhouses, which is perfectly reasonable, and the development goes down to 75 dwellings, first the amount of affordable housing to be provided has shrunk, because it is a percentage target of 50 per cent, and 50 per cent of 75 is less than 50 per cent of 100, and secondly, mathematically, the developer has now to provide 37½ affordable dwellings, which is obviously somewhat problematic legally.
The solution in this legislation is that the targets will be set as numbers, but, crucially, section 65(3) requires the determination to include the indicative dwelling yield for each site as well. This means that everyone interested will be able to calculate an expected percentage, which is what they need. I would like to thank Minister Berry and Minister Gentleman for the way their offices worked with the Greens on this change. I think the outcome in the bill is very sensible.
The bill also makes a number of minor changes to the Nature Conservation Act. Two of these are related to consultation. If read literally, the consultation requirements set out in the act for draft controlled native species management plans and draft native species conservation plans for stated land could be very onerous. They could be read to require consultation with every household in the ACT.
While the Greens like extensive and quality consultation with the Canberra community, it is not necessary to consult every household on these plans. The bill amends the relevant sections to only require consultation with a lessee or custodian if the plan obligates them to undertake activities to either conserve or manage a native species, and this is appropriate.
Two further amendments relate to the conservator’s directions. Previously, when making a direction about the protection or conservation of a native species or ecological community, the conservator had to make a direction that was consistent with several documents listed in the legislation. These include such things as a
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