North Eveleigh affordable housing announced

Federal Member for Sydney Tanya Plibersek has placed affordable housing front and centre of her election campaign, announcing 88 new affordable rental homes to be built at North Eveleigh.

The dwellings will be built with grants from the Rudd Labor Government’s National Rental Affordability Scheme, with City West Housing to receive over $9 million worth of incentives over 10 years to provide low-cost rental housing.

“We know that one of the most challenging issues in the inner city is affordable housing,” Ms Plibersek said at the North Eveleigh site last Thursday.

“We want to have a community with a range of different income levels and unless we make sure that we provide affordable rental accommodation, we’re going to have a city which people can’t afford to live in.”

2,000 new homes across the country are planned to be substantially completed by June 2014. Another round of $1 billion worth of incentives, over 10 years, is currently underway and will deliver a further 10,000 homes by June 2016.

Ms Plibersek said North Eveleigh – where the 88 new rental homes are under contruction adjacent to Carriageworks – was a brilliant area to live in.

“It’s a great community to be a part of. It’s close to transport, it’s close to job and educational opportunities,” she said.

“This affordable housing is for people who may qualify for public housing or they may be slightly above the public housing cut-off but still struggling to pay the $500 a week rent that you would pay for any house in the inner city these days.”

Sam Galvin, Development Manager at City West Housing, said there were 300 more dwellings in the pipeline, including 104 units at Green Square and around 100 in Glebe.

“The original target was 61 units as part of the Housing Affordability Fund agreement, so we’ve increased that yield by 27 units to create an extra 27 additional households in affordable accommodation, which is brilliant,” he said.