Collaborative approach needed to support more social housing

THE City of Greater Geelong is relieved that the Victorian Government has withdrawn legislation that would have mandated rates exemptions for social housing in our municipality.

The council has recognised the need for an increase in social and affordable housing in Greater Geelong.

While a shortfall of social housing was already an issue in our community, surging property prices and high rental demand in recent times have brought on further housing stress.

Council’s Social Housing Plan sets a target of increasing the supply of social housing from three per cent of total households now to seven per cent by 2031 (an increase of 6000 social housing dwellings), and then to 10 per cent by 2041 (a further 6000).

We have just started public feedback on a proposal to turn over three parcels of council-owned land – worth a combined $3.6 million – for this purpose.

Supplying council-owned land is a key action we can take, as is working with developers to ensure social and affordable housing is included in new developments.

Clearly, for the aims in the plan to be realised, we will also need to see significant state and federal investment in social housing, and we have welcomed the Victorian Government’s $5.3 billion Big Housing Build.

This is a huge investment that will make a genuine difference in the lives of people who are struggling to put a roof over their heads.

However, through its proposed planning reforms, the government was unfortunately looking to transfer some of its responsibility onto Victorian councils – and therefore ratepayers.

More specifically, it was seeking to transfer a statewide responsibility onto a select group of ratepayers from metropolitan Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo and – yes – Greater Geelong.

By exempting social housing from paying rates in these municipalities, the government would have saved itself around $54 million each year.

It said it would invest this money back into public housing maintenance and upgrades.

We firmly believe this work should be funded directly from Victorian Government revenue, and hopefully that is exactly what will now happen.

The City of Greater Geelong already provides exemptions to some social housing providers, and we always felt this should continue at the discretion of councils, rather than being mandated by the state.

In promoting its proposal, the government said individual councils would need to determine how they accommodate the rate reform.

But there are really very few avenues for councils to ‘accommodate’ lost revenue.

We wouldn’t want to pass the charge on to the rest of the community by hiking rates, and even if we wanted to we couldn’t, given the state government’s rate cap.

Simply, the proposed mandate would have seriously impacted the financial sustainability of the City of Greater Geelong, and therefore our ability to provide the full range of services and facilities to the community.

We were also disappointed by the lack of timely and transparent communication during the development of the legislation.

Formal consultation on the change only took place on the day it was announced, and a request for an estimate about the permanent impact on our financial position was underplayed with a focus on transition payments that would be made to affected local government areas.

A policy such as this could have served to disincentivise councils from pursuing social housing strategies of their own, such as we have been doing.

I wrote a joint letter to the Premier with City CEO Martin Cutter expressing these views, which were also shared strongly by other councils across the sector.

Industry groups lobbied hard against other parts of the proposed reforms.

Credit to the government for listening to this feedback and opting to take the package off the table, as it says, ‘for good’.

Housing stress is a real issue and one that all levels of government need to tackle together.

To me this means a collaborative approach, and not one where one level of government passes some of its responsibility onto another.

The withdrawal of the legislation removes a potential major burden from the council’s annual budget and allows us to continue to focus on doing what is within our control to support more social housing within this region.

For those interested in council’s proposal to transfer three parcels of land to social housing, you can find details and provide feedback until April 6 via yoursay.geelongaustralia.com.au/socialhousing.

Cr Trent Sullivan,
Deputy Mayor