Central Coast Council will support the five major recommendations of the Regional Housing Taskforce as it continues to address the region’s chronic housing shortage.
Council resolved at its September 27 meeting to advise the NSW Government of its support of the recommendations and support local organisations advocating for an acceleration of action to address the current lack of affordable housing on the Coast.
The five key recommendations are: supporting measures to bring forward a supply of development ready land; increasing the availability of diverse housing; providing more certainty about where, when and what types of homes will be built; investigating planning levers to facilitate the delivery of housing that meets short-term needs; and improving monitoring of housing and policy outcomes and demand indicators.
A report to Council said its soon to be released Central Coast Region Plan (CCRP) will set the strategic direction for planning, with housing being a key focus area.
Council is also close to finalising its draft Housing Strategy, which will align with the CCRP and include an implementation framework for the CCRP and the recommendations of the Regional Housing Taskforce.
Council also has an adopted Affordable and Alternative Housing Strategy, which contains a pathway to implementing many of the issues contained within the Regional Housing Taskforce’s recommendations.
The report says the main issues with housing supply (in general) in the region are the low uptake of higher density development in key centres such as Gosford and The Entrance and the lack of enabling infrastructure for land already zoned for residential development.
“The draft CCRP proposes an Urban Development Program which aims to address these issues and co-ordinate the release of land for housing,” it says.
The report says Council’s Affordable and Alternative Housing Strategy includes a range of actions to increase the supply of affordable housing across the region, providing pathways for a range of households, from very low through to moderate incomes.
“A key focus of the strategy is on actions that are most likely to have a practical impact on the supply of affordable housing, including developing affordable housing on underutilised Council land.”
report to council
It says the draft CCRP includes strategies and actions to ensure a greater diversity of housing typologies on the Central Coast, including medium and higher density housing.
“Council would welcome further investment by NSW and Federal governments in housing creation, particularly for social housing,” it says.
The report says while Council supports the provision of additional funding to local governments to progress strategic planning, the key issue is the access to planning resources to progress these projects with a shortage of planners in regional local governments.
It says the CCRP will provide a high-level strategy for planning and be implemented through the development of District Place Plans, commencing with Wyong and the Peninsula.
The report says Council welcomes the opportunity to work with the NSW Government to explore amendments to planning provisions that accelerate the delivery of housing.
“Council is aware that there is a significant gap between the number of consents issued for housing and the number of approved developments that progress to completed building work,” it says.
“Understanding and removing barriers to this investment by the private sector would materially improve housing supply.”
The report says improved monitoring of housing and policy outcomes and demand indicators would be welcome and Council is undertaking an internal review of planning data monitoring to ensure the required information is collected at a local level, duplication with NSW Government data is removed and to ensure a consistent internal approach.
The report says the State Government’s 2022 Housing Package will also address the housing crisis through: the Accelerated Infrastructure Fund, which provides $300M over four years to deliver local infrastructure to support development of 150,000 homes across NSW; the Regional Housing Strategic Planning Fund, with grants of up to $250,000 available for a range of local strategic and statutory planned-related work; the Closing the Gap Housing Solution, providing $149.8M over three years to expand Aboriginal housing in regional and remote areas; $174M to support key worker housing; and $300M to support upgrades of up to 15,800 aged social housing dwellings.
“Council intends to apply for funding streams for which local government is eligible,” the report says.
Source:
Central Coast Council agenda and minutes, Sep 27