David Jacobson, Suffolk Park
How refreshing to read Colin Cook’s letter regarding the affordable housing issue. While housing construction costs can be controlled through design, specification and size, the cost of land is the significant contributor to final affordability.
Rezoning from agricultural use to residential use immediately increases the value of the land significantly, even though no material change has occurred to the land at the time of rezoning.
With Byron Shire Council now seeking input to its Residential Strategy and clearly noting the issue of affordability, there is a golden opportunity to investigate options of land tenure / ownership through leasehold, land trusts and co-operative models as part of the rezone process.
Not only would this provide a path to more affordable housing, it would also begin the process of moving away from land / property being used to soak up capital in an unproductive way and releasing it for more worthwhile uses.
I would caution against putting too much hope in reducing land costs through leasehold. The land in the ACT has been leasehold since the Commonwealth bought the paddocks a century ago, but the leases are not cheap. The leasehold system has given the Commonwealth and now the ACT governments a freer hand in enabling the release of pastoral land as it has been needed, which is part of why Canberra is well planned. But it does not make for cheaper land, unless the ACT government chooses to release land at a faster rate than demand (as happened when it continued to release land after Howard cut the the public service). The price of purchasing the 99 year leases is generally higher in Canberra than comparable sized cites like Wollongong, the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast. What they do do in the ACT is capture to the public benefit some of the added value generated by any rezoning – say form single to dual occupancy – through a betterment tax, something that all councils should be able to do. The high land and housing prices in he Byron Shire are a simple result of supply and demand as result of the popularity of the area combined with a resistance to development since the 1960s. Effectively much of the growth has been passed to neighbouring council areas, and workers commute to the Bay. That might not be a bad thing in that it protects a valuable tourist area in a delicate coastal environment, Unfortunately the Shire and State governments have been slow to provide appropriate road infrastructure to support the movements of commuters, and any progress with providing decent public transport is constantly deflected and dissipated by an obsession with using the train line.
Well Petrus, just look at Crown land and caravan parks on that Crown land. That is affordable housing. It is land that belongs to the people but the people are forbidden from walking on that land as it becomes housing….. yes as a business and at a profit making exercise as part of small business belonging to someone else other that the people of Byron.
There is a lot of Crown Land that we cannot walk on . Kirribilli is on crown land but try ambling through the gardens uninvited and you’ll get short shrift. In the case of van parks the land is rented to the “campers”, so I have no problem with those people having a measure of privacy and security. We stayed at the Brunswick van park a decade or more ago and at least at that time it was very much in the spirit of a beach camping area – a low key, not too dear way for families to enjoy a holiday and bring benefit to Brunswick Heads. Some of the councils parks along the coast though are perversions of the beach side camping, with large manufactured housing and .- they are simply a council provided . I was curious about your comment on the business – do the lessees not pay the council to operate the park?