Housing affordability through the roof
The decline of affordable housing is one of the biggest issues facing inner Melbourne. As of 2006, 97% of the houses and 77% of units sold in inner Melbourne were at the top end of the market. Port Phillip Mayor Cr Janet Cribbes said that seeing the housing affordability figures in black and white should put a rocket under all levels of government.
“With the new Federal Government focus on homelessness and the rights of ‘working families’, there hasn’t been a better time this century to start tackling housing un-affordability,” she said. “Over the past decade, Federal Government investment in public and community housing fell to an all-time post-war low. The economy is still booming and frankly there are no excuses for inaction anymore.”
New Website
A website, brimming with statistics and indicators on housing affordability in inner Melbourne, was recently launched by the Minister for Local Government, Dick Wynne. The website, established as a joint initiative of the Cities of Melbourne, Yarra, Stonnington and Port Phillip provides useful and accessible data on affordable housing needs and targets at the regional and local government levels.
More than 350,000 people live in the four municipalities. The beauty of this website is that it offers consistent data covering the four different municipalities and inner Melbourne as a whole over the period 1986-2006. The database is very easy to use, even for those of us not experienced in crunching stats. A series of drop down boxes means you can instantly search the database and come up with stats, tables or charts which address your specific criteria. What would have once taken months of work now takes seconds.
The website is designed to be used by any individual or organisation interested in being informed about housing affordability. The website was designed with a number of target users in mind – local government, State Government, housing associations, other housing organisations and agencies, peak bodies, researchers, residents, developers, students and consultants.
It will provide useful information for anyone wanting to rent or buy a home in inner Melbourne. A $100,000 grant from the Victorian Department of Planning & Community Development’s Local Area Planning Support Program funded the website. The lead consultant was Swinburne Institute for Social Research, with the Swinburne Information Technology Innovations Group being sub-contracted to create the website.
Also in this edition:
- Street Life and the Strip - the design dynamics of the Surfers Paradise Strip
- City of Salisbury Landscape Plan
- The certainty of rapid major change
- Urban design in regional cities
- Main Street versus Shopping Mall
- ‘Eco-Village’ in Sydney's Green Square
- Sustainable design and transport
- New book release: Urban Energy Transition