Professor Michelle Norris:

There are a couple of problems in relation to both access to and delivery of affordable housing and cost-rental housing. A key issue is the income bands used for targeting. They are just too narrow, in my opinion. There is a very narrow gap on top of the social housing income limits that enables people who do not qualify for social housing to qualify for cost rental. In my view it is too narrow. Also, the income limits are not regularly updated by the Department of housing. I was a member of the Housing Commission and we pointed out that, for instance, the income limits for access to social housing had not been updated for 13 years. A lot of people fall out of eligibility who would be eligible. That is one side of it.

As Ms Anderson mentioned, access to land is a key issue. I should say, I have previously been a member of the board of the Land Development Agency and I think the agency, in many ways, is doing an excellent job in delivering social and cost-rental housing. The original mandate of the agency around activating State lands could be given more attention. The agency publishes a report on relevant lands, that is, State lands that could be used for housing. To date, its activity on these lands has been based on taking sites into its ownership for its own development. The original idea of the LDA was that public lands would be land banked by the LDA and made available to other providers. If that role was given more emphasis, that would help. Having sat on the relevant subcommittee, I experienced some of the barriers the agency faces in trying to get other agencies to transfer land because often housing is not a priority if the other agency is delivering health services or whatever, which is understandable. It would be more appropriate that those decisions would be dealt with by a Cabinet committee so the line Minister is asked to present to the Cabinet committee on housing. The volume of land on those sites is not enormous but the sites are often very well-located in towns and cities and are where we need the housing to be.