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Canberra Today 18°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

New housing plan falls short, say Libs

A plan to release more land for sale in the capital won’t go far enough to address the unmet demand for stand alone housing in the ACT, according to the Canberra Liberals.

The ACT government has announced it will increase the number of dwelling sites released for sale in its land-release program to 30,000 over the next five years, with more than 70 per cent to be in multi-unit developments.

Under the plan, the total housing supply in Canberra should increase from around 180,000 dwellings to around 210,000 dwellings.

But Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee says the plan fails to provide Canberrans with a “genuine” housing choice.

“While the Chief Minister has come out and said with much fanfare the government’s new indicative land release program for 2022-23 will have 3,918 residential sites released to the market up from 3180, realistically this equates to only a couple hundred extra blocks of land a year for stand alone housing,” Lee says.

“The Chief Minister has failed to provide information about how many of these blocks will be for stand alone housing; where they will be located and what assurances he give that they will actually be delivered.”

Despite welcoming the government’s plan to release more land, Master Builders ACT says more work needs to be done to accommodate the “needs” of the entire community.

“Remarkably the government has doubled down on its commitment that 70 per cent of new housing will be in the form of units and apartments despite the latest ABS figures showing that 70 per cent of the ACT’s households are families, with the majority comprising traditional nuclear families,” Master Builders ACT CEO Michael Hopkins says.

“Until the Government realises that its housing strategy needs to serve the needs of the community, not deliver arbitrary infill targets, the price of single housing in Canberra will continue to sky-rocket.”

 

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