Land gifted for affordable housing as availability worsens
A council in the state’s Mid North has gifted community land to an affordable housing organisation, as towns across the state struggle to find accommodation for essential workers.
Situated on Herbert Street in Laura, the block was purchased by the Northern Areas Council in 2009 and has been on the market for $40,000 since 2015 with little interest.
Now, the council, which encompasses 10 towns including Caltowie, Gladstone, Jamestown, Laura, Spalding, Stone Hut and Yacka, is gifting the land to not-for-profit Uniting Country Housing (UCH) to build an affordable house on the allotment.
As of February this year, the organisation had over 200 dwellings in towns including Port Pirie, Whyalla, Moonta and Clare.
Northern Areas Council mayor Sue Scarman told InDaily there was very little housing available across the council area at the moment.
A council in the state’s Mid North has gifted community land to an affordable housing organisation, as towns across the state struggle to find accommodation for essential workers.
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“If you want a rental, you can’t get one. There are no rentals. And as for homes up for sale, I’ve heard several times that they don’t even get the for sale sign up,” she said.
“People can’t afford to stay in the city, so they’re moving out into regions. After Covid, all the homes just got snapped up, and prices increased.”
On the other side of the state in Penola, real estate sales specialist Jo O’Connor said the housing market was the same.
“We had a lot of people from Melbourne and Victoria wanting to escape lockdowns there… we had a huge influx of people that were selling their properties for $2 million or something and then moving to South Australia and buying their pick of the houses here.
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“A lot of our market for the last three years has come from Victoria, and now it’s coming from Adelaide.”
O’Connor said there have been very few property listings in Penola and Naracoorte, which have a joint population of 6599 according to the 2021 census.
“We got down to just two houses left. We probably are building up stock a little bit, I might have five or six houses on my books [now], but everything has gone. We had a huge sell-out, we had just nothing left.”
O’Connor said there was not a single rental property available in the area.
Scarman said the lack of housing in the Northern Areas Council was impacting not just those looking for a house but also the wider community.
“If you want doctors, nurses, teachers, we can’t offer them accommodation,” she said.
“Even council staff. We’ve got one at the moment who’s living in the caravan park during the week and then goes home to Adelaide.
“There just isn’t that temporary housing, the immediate housing, there’s just nothing out there.”
The land in Laura may soon be joined by an allotment in Gladstone, with the council opening public consultation on another disposal of council land to be used for “affordable Housing or other uses”.
