More Canberra property buybacks on the cards to fuel new public housing

The ACT government has given the green light to another round of property buybacks for the development of public housing in Canberra.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said his cabinet had approved a further round of renewal on Tuesday, calling on property investors, builders and developers with land or multi-unit projects, underway or completed, to apply for the buyback scheme.

“We’re into our fifth tranche of decisions around renewing some of the highest-density, most disadvantaged precincts, using the proceeds of those changes to invest in new housing in a number of different locations,” he said.

“We continue to want to deliver housing in existing areas, areas like the inner north and Woden region, but also having a focus on the Molonglo Valley, in Gungahlin and, as part of future development, for example in West Belconnen.

“We’ve asked the [Public Housing Renewal Taskforce] to bring back a program [of buybacks] and suggestions … We’re looking at where we go for the rest of this decade and early into the 2020s.”

Close to 1300 units are being built to replace existing public housing throughout Canberra, with newly built dwellings to make up about 10 per cent of the territory’s total public housing stock.

Mr Barr said it was important the government planned beyond the Commonwealth government’s Asset Recycling Initiative, which finishes in June 2019.

The initiative gives the ACT government a 15 per cent payment boost for every sale of an existing public housing site. The bonus income will fund the light rail project.

Public Housing Renewal Taskforce head David Collett said the buyback scheme would appeal to developers of projects that had stalled or were waiting for an “adequate level of pre-commitment to move forward”.

“We were very successful in an expression of interest we put out last year in August and October and we’ve got about 160-odd properties – we’re still negotiating the last of those – that we’re acquiring through this process,” he said.

Mr Collett said the scale and location of the existing buyback properties had varied greatly, in line with the government’s salt-and-pepper approach to housing to avoid creating pockets of disadvantage.

He said the allocation of land for public housing within new suburbs had also changed considerably, and the taskforce was working with the ACT Planning and Land Authority and its joint-venture partners to earmark housing sites as land was subdivided.

“We’ve been able to get in early and talk about which sites suit public housing best – so the flatter blocks, the blocks that do offer the opportunity for those smaller developments or detached housing,” he said. 

Mr Barr said earlier planning helped create housing developments that reflected a suburb’s built form rather than towered over it.

“Generally speaking, housing is looking at groups of 12 to 24 in terms of the number properties in any concentration,” he said.

“Within the housing portfolio, they’re particularly looking at better matching the housing stock they have with the needs of their tenants, now and in the future.”

He said it was also a plus for the economy, with managers employing extra subcontractors and apprentices to construct housing.

Brighter Building Solutions is one of the groups involved in the existing scheme. It is building eight two-bedroom terrace-style houses in Moncrieff.

Managing director Jeoff Noja said his team was also building four private residences, for a total contract sum of about $2.3 million.

As a result of this work, the project’s carpenter had taken on two apprentices, and the plumber had employed a few tradesmen and two apprentices, Mr Noja said.

“[The initiative] takes a huge amount of risk away from us, as a builder, and enables us to undertake other projects at the same time,” he said.