Thursday, 17 October 2024

Housing

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:16): (696) My question today is to the Minister for Housing. The Bell Bardia estate in Heidelberg West is currently being redeveloped. There were 94 public homes there that have been demolished. The plan is to provide 53 community homes on this site, so that is a net loss of 41 public and community homes. In the time of a housing crisis, how can you in developing this site be providing less public and community homes than you had to start with?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:17): Thank you, Mr Puglielli, for your question and again for your exemplary behaviour in the chamber during question time in the period leading up to your question today. I could learn a few things from you, Mr Puglielli, and to that end I am grateful for your presence as a role model when it comes to reasonable parliamentary behaviour.

The Bell Bardia estate is one of many sites that we are developing, and as you know and as the local members know we are doing this in consultation with communities and in partnership with housing providers. We want to make sure that when we do this work we are engaging with what communities need, whether that is the configuration of the number of bedrooms in dwellings, whether that is open space or whether that is mixed development. We are determined to make sure that when and as we develop housing it is done in ways which integrate people within communities, irrespective of the nature of their tenancies or their occupancy of various housing configurations. This is where the work that we have done through the housing statement, the work we continue to do – through headleasing, for example, through private rental assistance and through development of social housing on sites like Bell Bardia – is intended to make sure that we are providing opportunities for people, whether it is in private rental or whether it is social housing, to be part of growing communities in really well placed locations with good facilities available to them.

We want to make sure that when and as we are developing sites we are doing so with that overall uplift, to deliver new homes across the eastern portion of the Bell Bardia estate. That includes a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, and there are new, landscaped communal green spaces. It is jointly funded work through the Australian government’s social housing accelerator program – that is that $496.7 million program. That is about delivering more than 769 new homes with Commonwealth funding and also the Victorian government’s big build.

We held phase 1 consultations on the Bell Bardia estate at Heidelberg West on the stage 1 project in late July, and that was about helping to plan the future of the site. We are now considering – to go back to one of the points I made earlier – that community input as we develop those draft plans for the site. We will present those draft plans for further feedback later this year, and that will contain the configurations of housing on the site as it is developed, Mr Puglielli. Again, I would be very happy to have further discussions with you about the development of that site, the combination of funding from state and federal governments and the partnerships that we are engaging with across the sector.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:20): Thank you, Minister. I am just going to go into the numbers a bit more if that is all right. It is my understanding that there are plans for a total of around 460 dwellings at the Bell Bardia estate – I am happy to be corrected if that is not the case – which includes 51 affordable homes as defined too, but that will then mean there will be 356 commercially sold private homes. Minister, with such a long public housing waitlist and with so many people experiencing homelessness or insecure housing, why have you chosen to not make this site solely public and community housing?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:21): Mr Puglielli, your figures are right, and they are set out on the Homes Victoria site. It is about delivering homes with a greater measure of density on sites and making the best use of them. That is part of the broader housing statement work that we are doing, which includes unlocking a whole lot of government sites, including for social housing, so it is about a net uplift. We have already begun to construct, have completed or have in the planning stage more than 10,000 homes across the state for social housing.

This will include 53 social homes and 51 affordable homes, and that is about making sure that we can continue to do that work to meet the need across the board. It sits alongside a range of initiatives that are intended to alleviate pressure on various parts of the housing system, and that includes private rentals to make sure that we are preventing people from needing the social housing system in the first place. We have been working really closely with the local member in the other place Minister Carbines, and we will continue to engage with him. That draft process, though, and the community consultation and engagement will be completed later this year. I am very happy to provide you further information as it progresses.