HOUSING Matters Bass Coast (HMBC) wrote to all Bass Coast councillors and Jordan Crugnale (member of the Legislative Assembly), sharing our concerns regarding housing and homelessness, a summary of which is the attached letter.
Our vision is: “An end to homelessness and affordable housing for everyone!”
We are waiting on a response from the Bass Coast council that addresses questions raised in this report. The questions relate to some of the key issues outlined as follows.
We want council to adopt an “Advance to Zero” policy, to reach a ‘functional zero’ within a specified time frame in cooperation with the Australian Alliance to end homeless. This time frame will require specific actions that relate to and address the concerns we have with the lack of progress to date in what have been clearly defined policy and funding commitments nationally and state-wide.
The Bass Coast Council must lobby for mandatory inclusionary zoning so a fixed proportion of housing built in Bass Coast is affordable and published for people on the Victorian Housing Register’s waiting list.
The Big Housing Build is one example of a commitment that has to date failed to deliver to this region.
The initial allocation of funds to the Bass Coast Shire was $25m, of which $19m is so far allocated. According to The Homes Victoria website there are 10 active projects, which have 28 dwellings ‘underway’ and nine ‘completed’. Yet, on Sunday, January 19 and Monday, January 20, 2025 a visit to the six sites made available by the Bass Coast Shire Council showed that no work had been started. On all the Wonthaggi and Cowes sites the only thing that has happened in the two years since these parcels of land have been identified is that the lawn has been mown short.
We request an explanation from the Council as to:
• What is actually happening here and how is this situation to be remedied?
• What are the plans going forward and the relevant timeframes?
In addition to the above the Victorian Government established in July 2023 a $1 billion Regional Housing Fund to deliver 1300 social and affordable homes across regional and rural Victoria. Council will make three sites in Wonthaggi available to Salvation Army Housing and one site in Wonthaggi along with two sites in Cowes available to Community Housing Limited.
Questions to the Council include:
• Has the Bass Coast confirmed with the Government details of the anticipated $9.3m additional funding?
• Will available housing be part of the Victorian Government’s Ground Lease Model? This was initially announced as a 40-year lease term. Is there a difference?
• Will all the dwellings resulting from these developments be suitable to the needs of very low and low income households currently classified as ‘high need’ applicants in the VHR or will there also be a proportion of the Victorian government’s Big Housing Build ‘affordable housing’ earmarked as ‘non-social housing’ i.e., ‘affordable’ for the private rental market, to be let at 100 per cent of the median rental market for the area?
HMBC believe that the rent parameter established by the BHB’s ‘affordable housing’ is not genuinely affordable to those households in the lowest income quintiles who need it, and any housing procured through government subsidies should not be a substitute for market housing that should be provided by the housing industry.
Housing Matters Bass Coast