Tackling population growth ‘one nurse in an affordable unit’ at a time
By Tony Moore
A nurse on $90,000 a year, paying less than $520 a week for a unit a short commute from work, would be a measure of success under south-east Queensland’s new population planning.
Planners say incorporating “gentle density” in Brisbane and other major urban centres, giving key missing middle-income workers the chance to live closer to where they work, is the way forward.
Finding an affordable unit where a nurse on a $90,000 wage pays $520 a week for rent is the focus.Credit: Joe Armao
Nurses, childcare workers, health workers, teachers, police and retail staff fell in the category of key workers, Planning Minister Steven Miles said.
And under the blueprint to squeeze 2.2 million people into 900,000 new homes by 2046, one in five new dwellings in south-east Queensland would be affordable.
“A nurse on an average salary of about $90,000 a year would need to pay less than $520 a week in rent for it to be considered affordable,” Miles said.
“I don’t think it is too much to suggest that one in five homes should be affordable for our nurses.
“Wouldn’t it be great if they could afford to live near where they worked.”
Brisbane’s new planning term “gentle density” is a housing category between houses and high-rise units, for the “missing middle”.Credit: Queensland Government SEQ Regional Plan 2023
Gentle density, between “low rise” houses and high-rise apartments, is the new choice for “the missing middle” – middle income people forced to live further from work because of rising costs.
Gentle density would entail two-to-three storey unit blocks emerging around major population centres in south-east Queensland, as part of the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan.
How SEQ’s new social and affordable housing model will work
- A unit, flat or house would need to cost less than $520 per week to be classed as affordable.
- One-fifth of new dwellings in SEQ need to be affordable.
- Public housing and build to rent schemes will count towards the 20 per cent affordable target.
- The idea is to provide 20 per cent of new products delivered at market prices that are affordable to key, or “critical” workers.
- Prices are not proposed to be locked in perpetuity.
- The 20 per cent affordable housing is not “a requirement” for individual developers.
- It is a target for state and local governments to work together to achieve as affordable.
- A requirement for 20 per cent “affordable homes” is required in the new South Brisbane area.
It includes small studios or Fonzie flats, duplexes, row or terrace houses, triplexes or quadruplexes and low-rise townhouses or units.
“The number one cost for most households is their housing,” Miles said.
Sixty-eight per cent of SEQ’s 2.2 million extra people would live within the existing urban areas.
Miles announced the Queensland government would approve Brisbane City Council’s bid to add 10,000 new dwellings to South Brisbane, despite costs to clean contaminated land on nine large blocks of land.
In 2003, it cost Thiess $28 million to clean similar contaminated soil before residential units could be built.
But the cost to clear contaminated land at South Brisbane’s Kurilpa Peninsula did not concern Miles.
“They are all considerations developers will have to make when they put forward projects to the council for their consideration,” he said.
Miles said 20 per cent affordable housing at Kurilpa Peninsula would be prioritised, as an example of increasing higher density in all parts of Brisbane.
“The lord mayor has agreed to incorporate those affordability goals,” he said.
“We don’t want it all to be luxury units.
“We want there to be affordable apartments there, too, so that one of those nurses who works at the PA, or the Queensland Children’s Hospital, or the RBWH, can live there and enjoy the access to public transport and live that close to the city.”