Housing
On Monday 9th May I sent out an open letter to all the candidates in the electorate I live, all the local councillors in my LGA. I also sent this to social media, the local and regional newspapers and was overwhelmed by the responses from others concerned about the housing crisis we find ourselves in.
It being election time there was a fair bit of finger pointing but a huge amount of frustration and stories of personal hardship.
I had written the letter exasperated after I heard the story of a single working mother forced out of local rental accommodation and now living in a caravan with her 15 year old son. I also heard of whole families living in their cars or in tents as they could not get accomodation.
Thus far, one councillor has responded saying she will take this before council for discussion, and I have had one detailed response from our Greens Candidate.
Dear Bronwyn,
Thank you for writing to me with your concerns about housing on Tamborine Mountain.
I too share your concerns. Ridiculous rent prices means the Mountain may lose the interesting diversity we have. Pricing out young people, young families and creative people.
As the Greens candidate I would like to share what some of the Greens plans for housing are.
We are in a housing crisis. The housing market is broken and it's time to think differently.
The Greens want to invest in public housing and build one million homes over 20 years. These houses will be sustainable, accessible and affordable.
There will be a shared ownership scheme where 125,000 of these dwellings will be available for people to purchase their first home for $300,000.
Building and renovating dwellings will create 135,000 new jobs in construction.
Public housing wait lists will be cleared, housing will be more affordable and homelessness will end.
In relation to your question specifically about the Mountain, I like your ideas of tiny homes and shared housing. If I am elected, housing options in our area will be something I will look at.
I am also mindful that Tamborine Mountain is a beautiful semi-rural area and that rampant sub-division of land would not be in our best interests either. Having no town sewerage and water supply is also a factor. Possibly a section of the Mountain could become a tiny home hub? This would require community and council consultation.
I really appreciate your thoughts on thinking laterally how we can keep our Mountain diverse and creative.
Bring on the election!
Warm regards,
Nicole
NICOLE THOMPSON Greens Candidate for Wright — Queensland Greens
With only a week to the elections the other candidates have either not responded at all or sent something saying they will get back to me.
I would also like to thank and acknowledge the hundreds of comments from social media to my letter.
So what to do? Whoever wins the upcoming federal election the issue remains.
I’m not talking about carving up land for multiple house farms. I’m talking about a discussion about how we as communities plan for the future to look after young people, the vulnerable, the aged.
“‘there are some relatively simple, easy-to-implement and cost-effective things that can be done to ease rental affordability pressures . These include relaxing planning restrictions on small and non-traditional houses, allowing granny flats to be rented to anyone, permitting property owners to let space to tiny house dwellers, and possibly even subsidising the building of granny flats or modification of houses for dual occupancy.’”
Consider
self powered homes that pay for themselves by producing clean energy
Tiny and alternate houses can help ease Australia’s rental affordability crisis
Innovations in sustainable housing models are far ahead of planning regulations but we should be open minded about how potential housing for the future could be distributed.
The founders of the Making Good Alliance, myself and president of the Tamborine Mountain Arts Collective have been working on programming for the Regenerative Centre in North Tamborine and housing looks to be a likely program inclusion.