Housing experts unite to brainstorm sector challenges

Published on 02 December 2024

Uncovering ways to breathe life into Hobart’s underused land will be a central topic as some of Tasmania’s top minds from the housing sector gather at the Hobart Housing Forum today.

Up to 80 sector representatives will attend the event at the Town Hall to brainstorm ways to boost the city’s housing supply and increase the number of affordable rental options.

The attendees will range from not-for-profit community organisations, development industry experts, leaders in the construction industry and politicians.

During the forum, attendees will investigate ways to encourage property owners and developers to collaborate and convert underused land and buildings into medium and high-density housing.

Participants will also be given the opportunity to raise issues currently facing the housing sector during a roundtable discussion.

All available levers need to be pulled to address the current constraints around housing.

It is hoped this forum will spark productive conversations between parts of the housing sector which may not have connected or collaborated previously.

Information gathered over the course of the event will be used in the formation of a new Housing Strategy for the City of Hobart.

Quotes to be attributed to Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds:

“Housing stress is a very widespread and complex issue.

“Our city has limited space for greenfield developments, but we do have several underused sites that have significant capacity for redevelopment.

“With smart planning, we can convert these areas into medium and higher-density housing which would help provide vital living spaces for our residents.

“Encouraging mixed-use developments in the spaces where a lot of these sites are located and allowed for under the planning scheme will provide a diverse range of housing, including affordable units, while also assisting our economy with commercial space and new jobs.

“Organisations like Nightingale Housing have had incredible success building sustainable and affordable housing on the mainland.

“As a city, we need to look at ways to encourage organisations like that to take on projects here.

“The City of Hobart has an approval rate of about 98 per cent for development applications, but unfortunately many projects fall over in the post-council phase.

“We are hopeful that bringing all these experts into the same room will generate some really unique and productive discussions around the solutions to the city’s housing situation.”

Quotes to be attributed to Nightingale Housing Partnerships Manager James Senior:

“In the midst of both a climate crisis and a housing crisis, Australian cities need triple-bottom line housing that is environmentally, socially and financially sustainable.

“Access to appropriately located, well-designed homes is critical in supporting decarbonisation, individual and collective well-being, and economic progress in urban settings.

“We must reorientate the housing market to focus on homes that are attainable to a diverse mix of owner-occupiers and community housing tenants, in a tenure-blind model where community comes first.”

Quotes to be attributed to Infrastructure Tasmania Strategic Architectural and Urban Design Advisor Scott Balmforth:

“There is no one quick fix to the housing crisis, and that we as a community and across all levels of government and the housing sector will have to work together using a variety of levers to provide both the quantity and quality of housing required.

“One of the aims for attendees to take away from today is greater collaboration amongst the sector, and how this can provide benefits such as making projects more viable, provide greater equity and improving community amenity.

“Good quality and well-designed infill housing has broader impacts such as improved liveability, sustainability benefits, reducing traffic congestion caused by urban sprawl and reducing the loss of agricultural land on the edge of the cities.”

Quotes to be attributed to SGS Economics Principal Ellen Witte:

“Housing affordability is poor for increasingly more households, including pensioners, job seekers and part-time working parents.

“Many are paying 30 per cent of their income or more on rent, leaving them in a situation of rental stress.

“Deteriorating affordability across the country has been driven by a number of factors, including increasing material costs, the increased cost of construction, rising interest rates, a return to pre-pandemic rates of population growth, and strong rent price increases.”