The ACT needs thousands of extra properties for its rapidly growing population across the whole spectrum of the rental market: public housing, social housing, affordable housing, and the general market, housing dwellings, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said today.

To that end, next week’s Budget will include $345 million to fund more build-to-rent properties ($60 million); grow, renew, and repair public housing ($233 million); release more land ($11 million); and expand the community housing sector.

“This is a record investment in housing in the ACT, and the ACT Government is really proud to make this investment, particularly at a time when the country is facing a housing crisis,” housing minister Yvette Berry said.

The ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS) welcomed the announcement. The CEO, Dr Devin Bowles, congratulated the ACT Government “for actively prioritising investment in social, affordable, and community housing, so that more Canberrans have access to a safe, secure home”.

But the Canberra Liberals were unconvinced.

“This government has been in power for 20 years, and particularly in this last decade … they promised to increase the level of public housing, they promised all sorts of things that are not delivered,” Mark Parton MLA, shadow minister for housing and homelessness, said. “We are sitting at the same level or less of public housing than we had a decade ago, and it doesn’t increase.”

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• Opinion: Flawed Labor / Greens policy caused ACT housing crisis (28 April)

Between 2015 and 2018, $700 million was budgeted for public and social housing – and only $80 million was spent, Mr Parton remarked.

“Canberrans have got to the point where they don’t believe the promises,” he said. “Year after year after year, this government promises to spend bucket loads of money fixing public housing, fixing the rental crisis, and none of it happens … On the face of it, yeah, we can clap our hands and say this looks great. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

However, Mr Parton said he was pleased aspects of the housing policy the Canberra Liberals took to the election in 2020 appeared in the Budget, such as community housing providers.

“Community housing providers have the ability to provide solutions in the most cost-effective way, and probably the most time-effective way,” Mr Parton said. “So the government appears to be finally arriving at that conclusion, which is a good thing.”

The Canberra Liberals will release a “very solid” housing policy, with “some wonderful ideas”, in the lead-up to the election, he said.

ACT needs more housing

The ACT is one of the fastest-growing populations in Australia, growing at 10,000 a year, Mr Barr said, and is expected to reach half a million people by 2027.

“That dictates a certain level of supply just to keep up with population growth,” Mr Barr said.

Of 185,000 homes in the ACT, 55,000 are rented to tenants. While the ACT vacancy rate is the highest of all capital cities (1.8 per cent), the government states, a stepped increase in affordable long-term rental supply is essential.

(The Canberra Liberals, however, consider the 1.8 per cent vacancy rate very low, and note that Canberra was the second most expensive capital city to rent in earlier this year.)

The ACT also has double the proportion of households (6.2 per cent) supported by public housing than the national average (3.1 per cent): more than 11,500 social housing dwellings, home to more than 21,500 people.

However, more than 3,000 Canberrans are on the social housing waiting list.

“There is an urgent need for significant growth in public housing stock in the ACT,” Dr Bowles (ACTCOSS) said. “The need for rapid growth to meet population demands is underscored by an average waiting time for standard housing that exceeds five years in the ACT …

“Prohibitively high private rental prices have meant the ACT remains the jurisdiction with the highest rate of lower-income private renters experiencing rental stress. Heavy cost of living and rental pressure have left many in our community in increasingly difficult positions, choosing between which essentials can be covered each week.

“The ACT’s housing affordability crisis disproportionately affects people on low incomes, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people experiencing domestic and family violence, and people with disability. Growing our housing supply is imperative to reducing prices and improving equity as our most disadvantaged community members are often renters experiencing high levels of rental stress.”

Affordable Housing Fund

$60 million will be used to set up the ACT’s first Affordable Housing Fund, to grow the number of long-term affordable rental homes, at less than market rent. In the Parliamentary and Governing Agreement, the ACT Government committed to supply 600 more affordable rentals and 400 public housing dwellings by 2025–26.

Three build-to-rent projects will provide 160 community housing owned or managed affordable rental properties for 15 years, while the $4.5 million Ginninderry Women’s Housing Initiative will build 22 affordable rental dwellings to transition low-income women in Strathnairn from renting to home ownership.

The ACT Government will also work with the community sector to leverage Commonwealth funding and assistance available through the $50 million Social Housing Accelerator payment, announced last weekend, by identifying a pipeline of sites for affordable and social housing.

“The increase in commitment for affordable and public housing will be welcome news for many Canberrans,” Master Builders ACT CEO Michael Hopkins said.

“This commitment, when combined with the $50 million committed through the Federal Government’s Social Housing Accelerator, will help boost the supply of affordable housing in the ACT.

“There is still much more needed to help boost the supply of housing in Canberra to meet the needs of our current and future community, including planning reforms to allow delivery of missing middle housing, increasing the delivery of new land, and fast-tracking of development approvals for new residential projects.”

Grow, repair, renew public housing

$233 million will be used to grow, repair, and renew public housing.

Ms Berry said that this investment “will enable more build-to-rent projects; accelerate repairs in our existing housing properties; and it will also mean that the local community housing sector will be able to provide homes for low-income and vulnerable Canberrans”.

$177.1 million will be spent on Housing ACT operations, repairs, and maintenance, to ensure that public housing is safe, comfortable, and meets tenants’ needs:

“Decent and sustainable homes to live in that are affordable to heat and cool, [and are] accessible so that people can age in place,” Ms Berry said. “It’s not just a roof over people’s heads; people need to have homes that they can live in.”

$55.9 million will be invested in the Growing and Renewing Public Housing program to build 140 new public housing dwellings. The government has committed to renew 1,000 properties and add 400 new public housing homes to the portfolio by the end of 2026–27. By the end of 2023-24, the government promises that it will deliver 700, or half, of these dwellings.

Dr Bowles (ACTCOSS) said the $55.9 million was “an important step towards addressing the significant undersupply”.

“The funding is a welcome and necessary intervention to address the current and projected shortfall in social housing dwellings in the ACT. To meet its aims of increasing the affordable long-term rental supply, we are keen to see the ACT Government actively collaborate with and empower our community housing providers to access appropriate funding and land releases to build more homes.”

Land release

$11 million will accelerate further land release, alongside planning reform so the private market can deliver as much new housing as possible.

The government will release multi-unit development sites to the market with requirements for more than 200 affordable, community, public housing dwellings, and release a site in Gungahlin Town Centre for a build-to-rent development.

Over the next five years, the government will release greenfield and infill sites with capacity for more than 16,000 dwellings.

Other measures

The ACT Government will cut stamp duty, targeted at the lowest thresholds for owner-occupiers, as it has done every year since 2012.

Eligible first home buyers will be offered duty concessions of up to $36,664 through the Home Buyer Concession Scheme, while the government will increase 100 per cent duty concessions on off-the-plan purchases up to a property value of $700,000.

Property owners who rent their property through a registered community housing provider for affordable community housing might be eligible for a land tax exemption. 140 ACT properties participate in the Affordable Community Housing Land Tax Exemption Scheme, which the ACT Government intends to increase.

Mr Barr said the government hopes to add more supply through the planning reforms (which will be debated later this year), and if the Housing Australia Future Fund, Federal Labor’s $10 billion proposed scheme to build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties, passes the Senate.

The Chief Minister aims for housing supply to exceed the future population growth of half a million by 2027, and get the rental vacancy rate above 2 per cent, and closer to 3 per cent, which is seen as a healthy market.