Crown Lands and the NSW Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) have joined forces to identify parts of Crown land that could be used to develop social and affordable housing in regional areas.
Announced by Minister for Lands and Water, Kevin Anderson, the two Agencies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to deliver suitable Crown land for residential development in priority areas facing housing stress.
“Work is underway to develop a long-term strategy to identify and develop Crown land sites for housing,” Mr Anderson said.
“In the meantime, we are working to identify more sites that can be ready to progress with housing by the end of the year,” he said.
“These sites will be in locations with low rental vacancy rates and areas with high demands for social or essential worker housing.”
Mr Anderson said Crown Lands managed the State’s Crown land assets, while LAHC managed NSW’s 125,000 social housing properties, “so together they aim to identify land and grow social, worker and private housing supply to benefit communities that need it most”.
He said that once finalised, Crown Land’s Housing Strategy would include opportunities for funding and partnerships with other Government Agencies, community housing providers and other project partners to develop mixed tenure communities.
The Minister said regional NSW was home to about 40 per cent of the State’s population, with numbers increasing as COVID changed the way people lived and worked, and people searched for more affordable homes and lifestyle options outside cities.
“We’ve seen demand growing for regional housing and rents and house prices increase,” Mr Anderson said.
“By unlocking Crown land we can ensure more properties are built while investing in projects that create local jobs and support local economies.”
