Affordable housing levy innovative way to improve access — Mallard

Affordable housing options for Orange’s overheated rental and sales sector is one Innovative area that the new Orange City Council should invest in, new councillor David Mallard believes.

“I think there’s a number of things we can do; better housing affordability, people being priced-out of the market,” he said.

With Orange sharing the growing pains of many regional centres as COVID-19 hit city dwellers escape the rat race in increasing numbers, he said: “we need to be able to cope with more people coming here, and also protect the environment”.

Little-used State Government policies allowing councils to either levy land developers to fund affordable housing or require them to set-aside a proportion of their lots for low-income families, is an initiative that the Colour City should look-at, the first-time Greens councillor added.

“People buying and renting need to be provided for affordable housing… we’ve got considerable inequality in earnings, in the community, in sectors like hospitality.”

Despite suggestions that macro-economic reforms of this kind are State and Federal responsibilities, he says that there is much that local councils can do to alleviate this problem under new rules developed by the NSW Government.

“The State Government has given councils the mechanism to develop an ‘affordable housing contribution scheme’. 

How it works is, under any new development, developers will have to make a contribution in either land or lots, or a financial contribution to the Council scheme to develop affordable housing.

The policy is titled ‘SEPP 70’ and was enacted by the State Government in 2019, he added, though the scheme has only so-far been utilised and developed by a few Sydney councils.

(SEPPs or State Environmental Planning Policies are designed to set the rules that control what developments can occur on land.)

However — with Orange suffering severe shortages of low-cost housing for purchase or rental with the increasing investment in bricks-and-mortar — now is the time to bite the bullet, he believes.

“Council is currently developing their local housing strategy, so we should be looking at implementing this as part of it,” Cr Mallard said.

“I think we’ve got to have change; people are moving here in increasing numbers and we have to have both the right vision and to be able to protect the environment as well,” he said.

His election as head and sole elected councillor on the Greens Party ticket continues almost two-decades of representation for the party on Orange Council.

“We received about 9.2 per cent of the vote, and we were very happy with the result. We had a diverse group running and we improved our vote from 2017,” Cr Mallard said.

“I’m just proud that we’ve been able to continue the representation of Greens councillors at Orange for the last 17 years.

“It’s very important for the community, it means the community has a representative there with the Greens’ values… not only environmental sensitivities, but social justice and grass-roots democratic participation,” Cr Mallard added.

Water supply, currently an issue seemingly in abeyance after two good years with overflowing dams and green pastures, is likely to again become a limiting factor on growth, he believes.

“We’ve been very innovative on how we manage our water supply, now we need to be better at how we manage demand,” he said.

With a new-look Council, new mayor, and deputy mayor, and plenty of fresh faces, he says that this current Chamber has a real chance to make a positive impact on the civic life of the “little Apple” (as Orange was once described in a short-lived promotional campaign).

“I think there’s a great opportunity here; a diverse Council and a fresh way of looking at things,” Cr Mallard enthused.