Hobart’s Rental Crisis
It is extremely concerning to read that rental vacancy rates in Greater Hobart are the lowest in the country. Rental vacancy rates indicate the number of available properties to rent in a given area. Experts tell us a healthy vacancy rate is about 3%. In Greater Hobart, vacancy rates have fallen to an all-time low of 0.5% and are continuing to fall.
This low vacancy rate has driven rents up by as much as 10% in the last three months and represents a complete failure to supply housing at the rate required to maintain a functional market. I ask, “Where the hell are young people and essential workers meant to live?”
The result is not just a housing crisis, but a housing emergency that needs action right now.
The effects of an inability to house the people of Hobart are profound. It means we can’t attract essential workers who help to grow and support our community and economy. Nurses, teachers, childcare workers, trade workers and bus drivers will all go elsewhere to work, where they can get a home that meets their needs.
Do you find yourself wondering why trades can charge so much or why you can’t get a doctors appointment in a timely fashion? It’s because there simply are not enough of them in Hobart. The lack of housing plays a significant role in these day-to-day frustrations. Those frustrations have knock on effects. For example, the inability to get into a GP means sicker people present to the Royal Hobart Hospital in higher numbers. And guess what? The time to be seen in the Emergency Department is impacted by the inability to attract nurses and allied health workers. The hospital is full because we can’t discharge elderly patients into nursing homes simply because we can’t attract enough people to work in our nursing homes.
In both my roles as a Councillor and a paramedic, I am seeing this insanity play out in real time. Services are imploding, and all our young people are leaving. Anecdotally I hear that lack of appropriate housing is driving many of these social pressures. Essential workers often work long hours, like our nurses who can work shifts of 16 hours. These workers often don’t want to tack a 40 minute commute onto their day. They ideally want to walk home and collapse into the couch.
We know that young people and many of our essential workers do not want to live in a 3 bedroom house on a quarter acre in the suburbs. In fact, some experts suggest that as many as 40-50% of the population want to live in an apartment or townhouse. Yet Hobart has the lowest housing diversity of any city in the country and detached dwellings are being built faster than apartments and townhouses. Just 24% of our housing market in Hobart city is considered medium density.
It’s not just young people suffering. Older people are unable to downsize to semidetached townhouses or apartments, because there simply isn’t enough of them. This means there are many older Tasmanian’s stuck in homes they no longer want or need. It means care at home services spend most of their time travelling between clients rather than caring for Tasmanians. Many older Tasmanians would love to live in thriving medium density development, close to services and neighbours, and this would result in significant efficiency gains for services that help Tasmanians to age in place.
All levels of government must come together to urgently address the housing supply crisis. Most importantly, we need help to deliver medium density developments close to the city. It is more economical in the long run to build urban infill projects when compared to green field development.
Over the last few weeks I have been meeting with property developers, commercial builders, architects and state and federal politicians. I’ve learned that construction costs and headworks are the main reason for the medium density market failure. The Federal Government can step in to assist Tasmania by subsidising Bass Straight transport for specialist equipment, such as tower cranes, and materials we don’t produce here in Tasmania like steel and plaster board. The Federal Government can also assist through its Urban Precincts and Partnerships grant program to fund the storm water infrastructure upgrades that Hobart City urgently needs to facilitate development.
The State Government can assist by bolstering the State Planning Office to provide a strategic priority precinct planning wing that can help to identify the most appropriate areas around the state for significant investment and assist councils to plan their future development. Council is currently investigating how it can incentivise medium density development in the State’s Capital.
Whatever tools are available to all levels of government, we must urgently use them to kick start a construction blitz of centrally located homes for Tasmanians. Now is the time to move with purpose to a better future for all Tasmanians.