Housing completions don’t meet the mark
Planning Minister Rob Stokes recently announced that housing completions were the highest in 16 years over the past year, yet figures have shown that it is still are not enough to address housing affordability.
Government figures show that in 2015-2016, 30,191 new houses and apartments were completed, up 10 per cent year-on-year and the highest level since 2000. In 1999-2000, 30,520 new homes were built.
About 40 per cent of the completed houses and apartments were concentrated in six local government areas, including the City of Sydney, Blacktown, Camden, Parramatta, Liverpool and The Hills.
Minister for Planning, Rob Stokes, stated last week that “More houses being built means more opportunity for Sydneysiders to buy homes across our city,”
“Unprecedented spending on new public transport and roads is helping to address a housing undersupply backlog of up to 100,000 homes.”
Speaking to the media, Property Council NSW Executive Director Jane Fitzgerald said that an increase in population, in addition to new taxes that affect supply, mean that the rise was a long way from solving the affordability problem.
“The recent release of population figures means that population growth has been ramped up which puts more pressure on housing, services and infrastructure.
“New taxes such as the foreign investment tax restrict supply and stop these encouraging figures from truly meeting the housing affordability crisis head on.
“The Government’s own Plan for Growing Sydney predicted the city would need 664,000 new houses by 2031, at the current rate we will fall 200,000 houses short.
“The Government needs to scrap the foreign investment tax to increase supply and meet the needs of a growing population.”