Tamworth Regional Council continues to proactively work with a wide range of community leaders and organisations in the development industry and all tiers of government to achieve housing availability, diversity and affordability.

To support this, Council recently held a Regional Housing Forum at the end of June in Tamworth to gather information from a wide and varied stakeholder group to address the currently constrained housing market and to determine key impediments to regional growth. Key themes, as noted below, were identified as requiring further investigation, support or action.

An initial and immediate action taken by Council was to lodge a submission to the Regional Housing Taskforce who are investigating the critical housing issues facing Regional NSW. In Council’s submission, the following issues, as identified through the forum and other research activities were recognised as contributing to the regions critical housing shortage;

  • Lack of building and construction materials;
  • Regional areas suffer from a chronic shortage of skilled, experienced tradespersons and contractors in the construction industry; and
  • Investment in apprenticeship and training programs appears to be decreasing and pathways for new entrants increasingly complex.
  • Lack of support from the banking industry including its lack of understanding of regional development;
  • Feedback from the development industry indicates that access to capital for residential development has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
  • Regional communities that have no experience of smaller lots and medium density and are wary of this as an alternative to the standard 4 bed/2 bath dwelling on an 800 m2 block;
  • Lack of good quality designs to showcase that smaller dwellings/medium density living can be an attractive option; and
  • Land banking by some developers.

Increase in homelessness arising from a growing mental health crisis, family breakdown and housing insecurity. Demand for short term crisis accommodation is consistently challenged by supply constraints resulting in increased pressures on the private rental market.

Job creation, business development and housing availability/affordability are inextricably linked. Productivity is constrained when key workers cannot be retained in a community where housing is inaccessible, unaffordable or diversity is limited.

We are committed to achieving housing growth in the Region by finding ways to resolve these challenges outlined above and to facilitate more diverse and affordable housing. Some of the initiatives suggested to the Regional Task Force include:

  • Better state led incentives for developers, particularly in relation to infill development, to make the delivery of affordable housing more attractive to developers;
  • Alternative models of tenure – rent to buy options and ‘Housing for Humanity’ style models are acknowledged as having great potential, however, take up is low in the regions;
  • Economic development guides and media marketing – marketing to metropolitan investment companies and construction firms as to the benefits and opportunities for residential investment and business in regional areas;
  • Community housing providers are integral to improving access to social housing. Government led initiatives which improve opportunities for partnerships and relationship building with Councils is encouraged;
  • Housing supply, housing diversity and housing affordability cannot be solved by a ‘one size fits all’ approach. If any government innovation/policy change is going to work it must be flexible to respond to local and regional not just metropolitan trends.

In addition to hosting the Housing Forum and lodging the above submission, Council is currently working on a range of initiatives that will deliver significant long term benefits for the Region. Our adopted vision for the future is Blueprint 100 which aims to reach a target population of 100 000 by 2041. Some of the key actions in Blueprint include:

  • Encouraging and facilitating a wider range of housing choices and levels of affordability;
  • Increasing density and affordable housing in new land release areas;
  • Encouraging shop top and apartment living in the CBD;
  • Improving the variety of housing density around high amenity areas; and
  • Improving housing diversity across the LGA.

These actions will be achieved via changes to planning provisions to increase housing densities (and provide appropriate infrastructure such as water supply and telecommunications), introducing financial incentives for certain types of housing, entering into partnerships with developers and/or social housing providers , promoting lot yield targets (e.g. 10 dwellings per hectare) and supporting ‘ageing in place’ .