Communal living was popular in the 1960s; an entire generation built a collectivist model of equity, inclusion and environmental sustainability in city share houses, regional farms and forest communes. But, as wealth contagion spread and populations grew, housing developers saw an opportunity.
The Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) movement, which started in the 1980s, fought to preserve neighbourhood character and property values. It sought to save the ever-shrinking green open spaces from the developers bulldozers, just as the systemic neglect and sell-off of public housing became popular with the aspirational voter.
When the John Howard Coalition government supercharged negative gearing in 1999 with a 50% capital gains tax break, homes became investments and tenants became cash cows. Politicians ensured there were no limits on personal investment property gain.
Then the 2007 global financial crisis hit and mortgage credit suddenly dried up. Regulators stepped in, over-tightening mortgage criteria to ensure banks would only lend to people who already had money, increasing the pressure on rents.
At this point, the home ownership dream became a mirage for anyone without a guarantor. Supply and demand had been officially hijacked.
Now, amid terrifying affordability statistics and with families living in tents and cars, communal living and shared spaces are again becoming popular — out of sheer desperation rather than choice.
YIMBY movement
The Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) movement believes that housing precarity is so severe that, regardless of aesthetics, mass high density development with less council regulations is the answer.
Contrary to the accepted economic convention, they do not believe negative gearing and capital gains is a significant part of the problem.
Chair of YIMBY Sydney Justin Simon told Green Left that the group does “not have a formal position on tax concessions”, adding they are a “minor factor” in driving up prices and even “reduce rents slightly”.
“[They] are far less important than planning in driving the housing crisis … Discussions of housing policy should focus on planning as the largest driver of unaffordability,” Simon said.
YIMBY Sydney takes aim at inner city councils for voting down what they consider essential although locally unpopular housing projects, particularly in rich suburbs, while approvals soar in poorer suburbs in the west where there is little organised resistance.
Simon said Heritage Conservation Areas (HCAs) stunt development. He said the City of Sydney Council has close to 50% marked out as HCA and 43% in the Inner West Council. He believes that councils are “arbitrary and unreasonable” on HCA decisions and, overall, council planning approvals are too slow. He is campaigning for NSW Labor to enforce its state housing targets over council rules.
Asked about public housing demolitions and sell-offs to private developers, Simon said he is “not categorically opposed to redevelopment of public housing” but are “strongly supportive” of putting public housing on government land in Haberfield. He said new developments “should be substantially higher than what was previously there”.
Councils and ‘red tape’
Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance Councillor for Merri-Beck in Naarm/Melbourne told GL the amount of liveable public housing being privatised around the country is “scandalous”. She said it is “happening on a massive scale in Victoria”.
“The [Victorian] government plans to demolish every single one of the 44 high-rise public housing estates. Thousands of people will be shifted out of these towers, and they will not build public housing in return [but] hand it over to private developers.”
If state governments agree with the YIMBY movement that high rise is the answer, why are they knocking the public housing towers down?
Bolton said when governments say buildings are past their “used by” date they often ignore responsibility for the lack of maintenance and refuse to release reports on the allegedly compromised structural integrity. “We suspect [the housing towers] are structurally sound,” Bolton said, adding the ground lease model gives developers access to government land “for 30 to 50 years”.
Experience tells Bolton that affordable housing components in new developments are always minimised, often time limited and ultimately unenforceable by the state.
Bolton believes the YIMBY movement focuses too much on attacking council regulations, while failing to criticise developers for price manipulation through land banking, long-term vacancies and thousands of “zombie” planning permits, where construction is held off so as to help increase the eventual profiteering.
“Instead, YIMBYs focus on council ‘red tape’,” Bolton said, including height restrictions, zoning, heritage and green space, which are largely there to avoid high-density slum syndrome.
Bolton said council planning is the key remaining protection against inappropriate, sub-standard high density projects being pushed by profiteering developers. She said building inspection requirements are being eroded, and inspectors, surveyors and certifications, once council employed, are being subcontracted out to the private sector.
“Building standards [in most of the country] have … been eroded to the point where some of these high-density outfits are simply not safe to live in,” Bolton said. “And they won’t be for many years … people have invested their life savings, and they’re now without a home and without any money.” Disasters like the Opal and Mascot Tower developments and the aluminium cladding crisis are prime examples.
Simon agrees current building standards are not being met and defect rectification is inadequate. He has written to the Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading calling for better enforcement.
Accessibility ignored
Two of the highest-need cohorts for housing have been neglected in the high density housing debate — the elderly and disabled.
Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW Legislative Council MP has been trying, since 2022, to push the government to introduce basic accessibility standards for all new builds, regulations which are already in place everywhere except Western Australia. “New South Wales is home to approximately 1.37 million people with disability and, by 2031, it will be home to an estimated 1.8 million people aged 65 and over,” she told GL.
Boyd is concerned aged and disabled people evicted from public housing will again be left to fend for themselves. “I’m really concerned it will lock them out forever. The government just wants to consign accessibility to the ‘too-hard basket’,” she said, adding that it adds less than 1% to the overall cost of new builds, but is prohibitively expensive to retro fit.
Asked about the Greens campaign on accessibility standards in new builds, Simon said he understood the “complex needs of communities living in existing large-scale public housing precincts” but “does not have a position on the proposed changes”.
Without real guarantees of public and social housing availability and accessibility, appropriate tax reform and enforceable rent price gouging controls, vulnerable people will still find themselves at the mercy of market, competing for an under supply of overpriced units.
YIMBY Sydney does not see any part of the affordability or availability crises as developer responsibilities. “If the government wants public and social housing,” Simon said, “it should tax and spend to build it, rather than relying on private developers.”
That is true, however it is not YIMBY Sydney’s main focus, nor is it the focus of state governments which remain in thrall to private developers, despite the housing affordability crisis.
A major structural problem remains; the market is the key mechanism for governments to allow taxpayer subsidised property investors continue to rake in mega profits.
[Suzanne James is a policy, governance, risk management and compliance consultant.]