Port Macquarie-Hastings Council - Affordable Housing

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Affordable housing is an important issue in the Hastings, impacting on a wide range of the local community including the aged and disabled, families with children at school and university and young adults who have grown up in the Hastings and now cannot afford to rent or purchase in the area.

In its simplest form, Affordable Housing is defined as when rent paid by households in the lowest 40% of income units does not exceed 30% of gross household income after any applicable Australian Government Rent Assistance is deducted.

However affordable housing is a complex issue and requires consideration of the following points:

Appropriateness;
Housing and social mix;
Choice of tenure;
Housing location;
Quality of environmental planning and design;
Cost;
Access to finance; and
Affordability relative to income.

Why is Affordable Housing a Concern?

Affordable Housing has become a concern in the area due to a range of issues including:

Increase in housing prices;
Ongoing strong area growth and demand;
Spatial concentration of demand around the major centres;
Level of dependency on Social Security;
Increase in personal hardship;
Social polarisation that is seeing the low income groups forced out to areas where they can afford to live;
The social cost seen in increases in family stress leading to family breakdown, depression and other health-related issues;
The creation of homogenous communities through a reduction in the social mix in communities; and
Impacts on the labour market as higher housing costs drive away the low income labour force

Affordable Housing Strategy

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council has adopted an Affordable Housing Strategy for the Hastings Local Government Area. The Strategy provides:

An assessment of current housing issues;
An analysis of current affordable housing projects to meet the needs in the short (1-3 years), medium (3-1 years) and long (8-10 years) terms; and
Based on the above analysis, identification of gaps leading to new planning and infrastructure development projects, that both fill those gaps and meet market demand and needs in the short and medium term.