Orange City Council & Phil Donato MP – Let’s talk about the Local Housing Strategy

In late February, submissions closed for Orange City Council’s Local Housing Strategy.
The stars truly were aligned; this Strategy was on exhibition at the same time as the Regional Plan Review for Central West & Orana 2041 and we also were doing an old-school mail out of our joint-report with the Regional Australia Institute on regional LGAs of high housing need to MPs, Mayors, and Council General Managers for the top 16 LGAs of concern. Orange, being an LGA of concern, was on our hitlist. Our Policy Officer, Kayla, resides in Orange and was therefore able to attend an in-person community workshop on the Local Housing Strategy where well over 80 community members turned out to learn more and air their concerns.

Image via Orange City Council (Facebook)

Synthesising all of this, we put in a submission to Orange City Council on the Local Housing Strategy and copied in the Member for Orange, Mr Phil Donato. A copy of our submission can be found here.

We are hopeful that our recommendations to improve the draft Local Housing Strategy will be seriously considered, namely asking for the rollout of:

  1. an extensive social housing acquirement/construction program (in collaboration with State Government and community housing providers),
  2. an Affordable Housing Contributions Scheme or fit-for-purpose and transparent Affordable Housing Planning Agreement Policy,
  3. a collated mixed use, residential infill strategy targeting specific sites in the established Orange township and satellite villages,
  4. public land dedicated to a community lands trust, and tighter regulations on short-term rental accommodation.