The Victorian Greens have responded to the Allan government’s plan to fast-track high-rise apartment blocks and remove stamp duty for investors, saying that proceeding without guaranteeing any new public and genuinely affordable housing will simply funnel more profits to wealthy developers while Victorian suffer through more housing stress.
The Greens said that while they welcome more housing near transport and services, without policies to require building genuinely affordable homes in these zones, Labor’s plans will simply let developers get away with building more expensive penthouses, and young people will not benefit.
The Greens say that fast-tracking the plans of wealthy property developers and providing short-term stamp duty concessions for property investors without forcing them to build any public and genuinely affordable homes will actually make the housing crisis worse.
The Greens have been calling for inclusionary zoning to ensure that 50% of these new activity areas are public and genuinely affordable housing for the people who need them the most.
Greens spokesperson for Public and Affordable Housing, Samantha Ratnam:
“If Labor wants to fundamentally reshape our city, they need to do it in a way that creates housing that teachers, nurses and young people can actually afford, but right now Labor is just giving incentives to wealthy property developers to build expensive houses that won’t solve the housing crisis.
“We’re in the worst housing crisis we’ve seen in decades and property developers are building expensive houses, hoarding land and keeping homes empty.
“If Labor actually cared about building homes that young people can afford, they’d require developers to build genuinely affordable and public homes in these zones, rather than just allowing developers to build expensive luxury apartments.
“Labor must commit to building more public and affordable housing – not just expensive luxury apartments.”