As part of its ongoing commitment to enable more affordable housing stock in the municipality, Glenorchy City Council has sold land in Chigwell to Housing Tasmania with the potential for development of social and affordable housing on the site.
5a Taree Street, Chigwell was identified in Council’s Open Space Strategy as being suitable for disposal and was sold for $1.25M following an evaluation process and community consultation.
The Glenorchy City Council allocated the proceeds from the sale to a reserve fund which will be set aside for future projects that will benefit the community.
The Glenorchy City Council has seen significant growth in the City, with Council’s planning team assessing over 600 development applications last year. This aligns with the Greater Hobart plan which forecasts another 16,500 residents and 8,200 dwellings in Glenorchy over the next 30 years – an increase of almost 300 dwellings per year.
The site is currently zoned General Residential and allows for approximately 14 dwellings.
The Tasmanian Government is engaging consultants to create a design concept with the best yield for a new social housing development in Glenorchy. Homes Tasmania will consult with neighbours and key stakeholders when preparing the development application for the site in the New Year.
Comment from Hon Guy Barnett, Minster for State Development, Construction and Housing
“I welcome this great initiative from the Glenorchy City Council to assist in addressing housing challenges that face all Tasmanian communities. This is exactly the type of collaboration between State and Local Government that can work well to increase the supply of housing stock and I congratulate Mayor Thomas and her council on this project.”
‘The Tasmanian Government is committed to delivering more homes for Tasmanians in need, which is why we have created Homes Tasmania, which will commence on 1 December 2022. Homes Tasmania will be working closely with the community sector and local governments to deliver more homes, faster and we have an ambitious $1.5 billion plan to deliver 10,000 homes by 2032, and we on track to deliver 1500 additional homes by June 2023.”
Comment from Glenorchy Mayor Bec Thomas
Glenorchy Mayor Bec Thomas said that Council is working hard to identify land that can be used to increase housing supply and was pleased to be able to continue to deliver on the actions in Council’s Statement of Commitment on Housing.
“Housing is a basic human right, and Council is committed to working with all levels of government, service providers and the community to help find solutions to the housing crisis,” she said.
“ABS data from the 2021 Census tells us that 10.8% of households in the City of Glenorchy are experiencing housing stress – that is people in low, very low- and moderate-income brackets spending more than 30% of their gross household income on either rent or mortgage payments.
“This particularly affects households in the private rental market, with 31.6% of the 5,371 households in private rental experiencing rental stress.
“We were very pleased that Tasmanian Government was able to purchase this land to develop housing to address the very real need in our community.”
“With the City’s forecast growth in mind, Council will continue to investigate parcels of land surplus to requirements that can be made available for housing and will work with the State Government to have rezoning fast-tracked so that appropriate housing can be built as quickly as possible.
“We want to provide a diversity of housing options to cater for our growing population and ensure the liveability of the City.”