| Today is the first budget under Premier Perrottet, which has given a real sense of the direction that he wants to take NSW.
“At a time when families are feeling the pinch with rising interest rates, escalating food prices and energy, it is good to see the NSW Government putting forward an approach that will put downward pressure on the single biggest item in household budgets whether you own or rent – the cost of a roof over your head,” said Steve Mann, CEO, UDIA NSW.
UDIA NSW has consistently been calling on the Government to make housing supply a key priority to deliver the homes that the people of NSW need and improve housing affordability. It was therefore pleasing to see $2.8bn allocated in today’s Budget for a Housing Package, to support housing access and affordability:
- $780.4m for the Shared Equity Scheme
Saving for a deposit can be one of the obstacles to home purchasing, under the scheme, those who have a deposit of just 2% of the purchase price and who meet the eligibility criteria can access a 40% contribution from the NSW Government for a new home and 30% for an established home. This pilot has the potential to support 3,000 first home buyers for key workers.
- $728.6m only for first time buyers to pay property tax instead of stamp duty as an option;
We welcome the support for first home buyers to be able to opt into the housing market and remove the need to pay a large stamp duty cost upfront. This is a small first step into structural reform away from Stamp Duty which is a regressive tax and which is one of the biggest financial barriers to home ownership and housing mobility.
- $300m for Accelerated Infrastructure Fund (AIF)
AIF Funds are modelled on the need to get local infrastructure projects moving by supporting councils to activate developer contributions that are held by Councils. Removing the constraints that have been hampering efforts to build the houses that communities need, will help councils deliver development ready land – (land which has water, sewer, roads, power and biodiversity approvals) together with a focus on speeding up the slow planning system.
Other positive measures included today,
- $300m for maintenance and upgrades to 15,800 social housing properties;
- $174m for 271 new homes for key workers in regional and remote NSW;
- $89m to reduce planning and assessment timeframes;
- $73.5m for planning and rezoning in state led precincts;
- $37m for 120 social housing dwellings;
- $33.8m for Regional Housing Development.
The investment commitment announced today, combined with the announcement to support the biodiversity offsets market, can unblock significant development ready land and support the supply of greenfield homes over the next few years.
UDIA NSW welcomes the government’s efforts to improve housing supply with this package, which will make a good short term difference to housing supply. However, we also need to see structural reforms that ensure that we deliver housing supply year-in, year-out and which means policy reforms to simplify the planning system to make it faster and easier to build great places for people to live and work.
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Media Enquiries:
Deanna Lane 0416 295 898 or dlane@udiansw.com.au. |
