2020-12-17 Ordinary Meeting Agenda

ORDINARY MEETING AGENDA                                                          17 DECEMBER 2020


“Affordable housing” is a term defined in the Planning Regulation 2017 as housing that is appropriate
to the needs of households with low to moderate incomes, if the members of the households will
spend no more than 30% of gross income on housing costs. Lower income households that spend
more than 30% of their income on housing costs are regarded as suffering housing stress.

“Social housing” is specifically housing that provides secure and affordable rental housing for low to
moderate income families and individuals, particularly those who have difficulty accessing
accommodation in the private market. Social housing refers to housing that is either provided by the
state as public housing or an entity other than the state (e.g. a not-for-profit organisation) as
community housing.

In Noosa Shire, the number of occupied private dwellings being rented by residents has been
decreasing for the last couple of decades. In 2006 there were 6,303 homes being rented by
residents, by 2016 the figure had dropped to 5,338. Over that time home ownership increased. In
2016 some 37.8% of occupied private dwellings in Noosa Shire were fully owned by the occupant(s)
which is in part, reflective of our older population.

1.    Housing Market

The Sunshine Coast statistical region as a whole (of which Noosa Shire is part) has become
increasingly popular and housing affordability and homelessness has become a serious concern.

Simplistically, it’s tempting to blame this on the long term philosophy of putting a sustainable limit on
growth in Noosa Shire. However the Sunshine Coast Local Government Area has growth targets of
87,000 additional dwellings between 2016 and 2041 and they are still reporting a crisis in housing
affordability, particularly a lack of rental properties and increased incidents of homelessness. The
2017 Sunshine Coast Council Housing Benchmark report noted that in 2016, the Sunshine Coast
was considered in greater housing stress than South East Queensland, Queensland and Australia
– for both those households with a mortgage, and those paying rent.

Likewise, Gympie Regional Council has a tradition of encouraging growth and has a forecasted
8,500 additional dwellings by 2031. However it also is suffering a lack of affordable housing,
particularly rental accommodation right now.

The gap between housing prices within Noosa Shire and the broader Sunshine Coast region has
opened somewhat over the last few years. This is evidenced in the following figures.

Figure 1 Median value of residential dwelling sales, Noosa Shire LGA and Sunshine Coast SA4




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