Draft Affordable Housing Strategy

The community was invited to make a submission on the draft Strategy from the Monday 4 September to Friday 13 October. Read the draft Strategy, Policy and FAQs.

What is the purpose of the Strategy?

We've developed a draft Affordable Housing Strategy that aims to increase the funding and delivery of affordable housing in the Coffs Harbour area.

There is currently a shortage of affordable housing in the Coffs Harbour region. Affordable housing is housing that is appropriate for the needs of a range of very low to moderate income households, and priced so these households can meet their other essential living costs. If a household is spending more than 30% of their gross income on rent or mortgage payments they are considered to be in housing stress. By this measure, 16% of the households in our community were in housing stress in 2021.

Council does not provide or build affordable or social housing, however we can facilitate and encourage the funding and delivery of affordable housing by those organisations whose responsibility this is. The Draft Strategy proposes to do this through:

• Advocacy to NSW and Federal governments for more funding for affordable housing.
• Facilitating and incentivising development of affordable housing through planning controls and procedures.
• Mandating inclusion of smaller dwellings in certain residential development and investigating contributions to affordable housing where rezoning occurs.

In March 2022 Council adopted an Affordable Housing Policy. This Policy has been updated to ensure it aligns with the draft Affordable Housing Strategy.

Next steps

Feedback received from the community and stakeholders is an important part of the preparation of the Affordable Housing Strategy and revised Affordable Housing Policy. Following the exhibition period, we will review all comments and feedback received and prepare final versions of the Strategy and Policy. The Strategy and Policy will then be reported to Council for adoption.