Industry partnership central to Victorian housing ‘shake-up’

In the newly released Victoria’s Housing Statement – The Decade Ahead 2024–2034, the state has revealed that it intends to build 800,000 new homes between 2024 and 2034, delivered through what it is calling an “affordability partnership” with the housing industry.

This sees the government sign on to work alongside the Property Council of Australia, Master Builders Victoria, the Urban Development Institute of Australia, the Housing Industry Association and Super Housing Partnerships. On the government’s end, it has agreed to “foster the conditions needed to stimulate investment and build high-quality homes faster in the places where Victorians want to live”.

That includes a commitment to building the needed infrastructure to promote development and a pledge to invest in training the workforce needed to create these homes.

The organisations, meanwhile, have committed to drive building, including social and affordable housing initiatives, among the private sector.

Victoria’s Housing Statement breaks the state’s plan down into five key areas of action, these are:

• Reforming Victoria’s planning system. The state intends to clear the backlog of planning permits, giving builders, buyers and renovators certainty about how long approvals will take, and a clear pathway to resolve issues quickly if those time frames aren’t met.
• Unlocking new spaces for building. Dedicating this land to high-density building, the state said it is looking to cultivate the creation of “cheaper housing, closer to where [Victorians] work”, and pre-existing infrastructure such as transport, hospitals and schools.
• Protecting renters’ rights. A major change includes restricting rent increases between successive fixed-term leases, so that landlords can not evict tenants at the end of a first fixed-term lease and then raise the rent substantially when re-listing the rental property. The state will also ban the practice of rental bidding and attempt to speed up the dispute resolution process through VCAT with the establishment of Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria.
• Building more social housing. Victoria is looking to rapidly accelerate the rollout of social and affordable homes across the state and will launch an urban renewal project across Melbourne’s 44 high-rise social housing towers.
• Introducing a long-term housing plan. The state will review the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to build a planning system that will act as a guide for future building.

In introducing the raft of new measures, Mr Andrews said he felt it represented “bold and decisive action now” designed to spare the state’s residents from further pain down the track.

“Whether you’re buying your first place, upsizing or downsizing as life changes, or renting – the work we’re doing will mean there’ll be a place you can afford, and that you can call home,” the Premier said.

Treasurer Tim Pallas added that the wide-ranging document represented “the first step of our work with industry to build the homes Victorians need for the decades ahead – not the last – and we’ll keep working with the sector and local communities alike to get on with it”.

Moreover, Sonya Kilkenny, the state’s Minister for Planning, said she hopes it will “give industry greater certainty with a planning system that works for Victorians – not against them”.