The Queensland Green's Inclusionary Zoning bill will require all new multi-residential developments, such as luxury tower blocks in the inner city, to include 25% public housing.
This bill will ensure the Queensland government enacts an inclusionary zoning strategy by 1 July 2024. Under this strategy, developers will be required to hand over 25% of all new dwellings or developable lots to the state for public housing. The public housing stock must be of equal character and quality to the rest of the development.
By requiring property developers to set aside one in four new apartments as public housing, we can provide good quality homes for thousands of Queenslanders, cut down the social-housing waitlist, and make sure we have diverse and liveable inner-city neighbourhoods.
The Greens' Inclusionary Zoning Bill will
- Put downward pressure on private rental prices, meaning cheaper rents in the middle of a housing crisis
- Allow teachers, nurses, and retail workers to live close to their work rather than sit hours in traffic every day
- Reduce homelessness and cut down the rapidly growing social housing waitlist
- Stop ordinary families and workers from getting pushed out to the suburbs
Submission to the State Development and Regional Industries Committee are CLOSED.
Thank you to everyone who supported the Bill. Except for property developers, all submitters supported mandatory Inclusionary Zoning in principle. There was some concern that our policy is too ambitious and will prove unprofitable for the development industry. But not only has a housing market premised on developer profit already failed, it's worth noting that one of the largest costs to developers is the highly over-inflated value of land. Land values are highly responsive to developer profits, such that they rise and fall with expected developer profits and costs. As profits have grown, so has the cost of land. Research suggests that the increased cost of inclusionary zoning doesn't result in reduced developer profits, because the costs are transmitted to land values. Besides, developers have been making record profits for years and delivered us to a point of crisis — the solution isn't to tweak the system to make developers more profitable, it's to directly invest in building public housing. The Committee is due to publish its report by 19 October, 2023.
Queensland can have high-quality, decent public housing for all of us
Public housing used to be built not just for the most vulnerable but for everyday working people and their families. Decades of under investment by both Labor and the LNP means that our public housing stock is crumbling, can't keep up with the demand for affordable housing, and ordinary people are ending up homeless.
While families sleep in tents and workers can't afford the rent, property developers are getting richer and richer.
Property developers and their friends in the Labor Party and LNP promise that new luxury apartment blocks and new developments will address the housing crisis. Property developers, the Labor Party, and the LNP are lying.
Despite huge amounts of new developments in places like West End and South Brisbane, house prices and rents in these areas keep getting higher, and more and more people are falling into housing stress.
It’s time property developers paid their fair share by giving a small portion of their developments to the state as public housing.
Public housing should be beautiful, accessible, and well-located. Public housing should be available to anyone who needs it. Across Europe and other parts of the world, public housing is available for anyone who needs it, including teachers, nurses, construction workers and essential service workers.
We could achieve the same here in Queensland with our inclusionary zoning policy.