ACT winning awards for affordable housingis

Wow!! I can’t believe I have only just read this …. talk about rubbing salt into open wounds.
I made the mistake of trusting the LDA and purchasing an OwnPlace house off their website nearly two years ago … and now I am essentially homeless as a result!
Despite the LDA website showing specific plans and saying ‘if you want this block of land you have to have this design and this builder’, AFTER we purchased the land another government department wouldn’t approve the plans. Our builder spent 10 months going between two government agencies trying to sort out disputes between them that should have been settled BEFORE the LDA put the designs on their website. That’s been 10 months of paying interest on land loans AND rent…. and now our places look like they won’t be ready until after the Christmas shutdown period.
I couldn’t afford the rent + interest any longer and have been housesitting for one family after another for many months now. Even to sign up to the RIOT-Act I was asked for a home address …. sorry I don’t actually have one! Ask the LDA why? Instead of helping this first homebuyer they have literally left me homeless…
I have written to Katy Gallagher and spoken to the LDA, but neither of them have actually followed through on fixing the problem or compensating those of us who are thousands of dollars out of pocket due to their errors.
I can’t believe they got an award for this scheme ….

urchin said :

if you got one of the ownhome packages and are happy, i’m glad for you. the individual decision to purchase is an individual decision with individual circumstances. i’m talking about gov’t policy.

I’m not good with economics. All I know is that house prices just keep going up and up and I can’t see an end to it.

So I was just glad that at least they did something to allow someone like me on one income to “enter the market” (what a stupid phrase really, I just want somewhere to live where I cannot be kicked out and don’t have to put up with inspections!). I didn’t have much choice at all in where or what I could buy and I’m always going to think of my house like a sh!tty little shoebox at the edge of town. But the fact that they got this award probably indicates that other cities are doing even less to allow people on lower incomes to buy?

Watson said :

urchin said :

what a sad joke that is…

“affordability” measures in australia as a whole and the ACT in particular are ass backwards. The way to make something affordable is to reduce the price. instead they introduce land rent so that people spend all their money on the depreciating asset while the gov’t holds on to the appreciating one. the “own home” homes are affordable only because they are built on tiny slivers of land.

the act gov’t has it in its power to make homes truly affordable–by releasing large tracts of land at reasonable prices. instead it chops blocks into ever smaller slices, charging more per m2–enabling it to profit more from the people it ostensibly claims to be helping. and making money–and as much money as possible–is clearly the name of their game.

I am one of those who bought a tiny sliver of land under the affordable housing scheme. And am grateful that I was given the opportunity. Would I have rather had twice the block size for the price I paid? Absolutely! Do I think that is achievable? Very unlikely. What you are suggesting would be to release large blocks of land, on a scale that would oversaturate the market and push the prices down? And what about the urban sprawl?

I don’t like it, I don’t agree with housing being so expensive, but I don’t think the government has the power to implement what you are suggesting.

As for the land rent scheme… that was a blunder. I thought about it a few times and then concluded that it seemed even worse than renting in a way.

Why doesn’t the gov’t have the power to drop land prices and increase supply, thus pushing prices down? Of course it has the power–it just chooses not to use it. It is the gov’t that sets land prices, and it sets them–as I was told by an LDA representative during the “land rent misinformation session” –at amounts designed to be competitive. bonner was being priced so high, we were told, because it was near forde (of course the fact that it is across the street from much cheaper amaroo seems to mean little).

i don’t entertain any illusions that the gov’t actually cares at all about true affordability (i.e., lower prices in the absolute sense) but it seems a bit rich for them to trumpet their progress on affordability when they are doing the complete reverse.

if you got one of the ownhome packages and are happy, i’m glad for you. the individual decision to purchase is an individual decision with individual circumstances. i’m talking about gov’t policy.

The ghettos of tomorrow.

At the end of they day they realize that the act govt is a fiscally unviable proposition without selling off the finite space in its jurisdiction, along with the revenue it gets from rates and land tax.

urchin said :

what a sad joke that is…

“affordability” measures in australia as a whole and the ACT in particular are ass backwards. The way to make something affordable is to reduce the price. instead they introduce land rent so that people spend all their money on the depreciating asset while the gov’t holds on to the appreciating one. the “own home” homes are affordable only because they are built on tiny slivers of land.

the act gov’t has it in its power to make homes truly affordable–by releasing large tracts of land at reasonable prices. instead it chops blocks into ever smaller slices, charging more per m2–enabling it to profit more from the people it ostensibly claims to be helping. and making money–and as much money as possible–is clearly the name of their game.

I am one of those who bought a tiny sliver of land under the affordable housing scheme. And am grateful that I was given the opportunity. Would I have rather had twice the block size for the price I paid? Absolutely! Do I think that is achievable? Very unlikely. What you are suggesting would be to release large blocks of land, on a scale that would oversaturate the market and push the prices down? And what about the urban sprawl?

I don’t like it, I don’t agree with housing being so expensive, but I don’t think the government has the power to implement what you are suggesting.

As for the land rent scheme… that was a blunder. I thought about it a few times and then concluded that it seemed even worse than renting in a way.

This is comedy gold.
Pity the joke’s on us.

Yes it is sickening to think that the outrage that is the LDA wins an ‘affordable development’ award.

Reminds me of the Bush administration when they used to go out of their way to introduce legislation under names like ‘No Child Left Behind’ (in the OECD country that leaves the most behind).

urchin said :

what a sad joke that is…

+1

These are completely artificial and unsustainable band-aid ‘solutions’ which address none of the underlying problems – in fact they make them so much worse in the end.

what a sad joke that is…

“affordability” measures in australia as a whole and the ACT in particular are ass backwards. The way to make something affordable is to reduce the price. instead they introduce land rent so that people spend all their money on the depreciating asset while the gov’t holds on to the appreciating one. the “own home” homes are affordable only because they are built on tiny slivers of land.

the act gov’t has it in its power to make homes truly affordable–by releasing large tracts of land at reasonable prices. instead it chops blocks into ever smaller slices, charging more per m2–enabling it to profit more from the people it ostensibly claims to be helping. and making money–and as much money as possible–is clearly the name of their game.