Draft Affordable Housing Strategy

Consultation closed: thanks to everyone who provided feedback.
The Affordable Housing Strategy was adopted by Council on 13 June 2024. City of Coffs Harbour has now commenced implementation of the Strategy.

Amendments to the Strategy and adoption by Council

Following exhibition of the Draft Affordable Housing Strategy during September and October 2023, some changes were made to the draft Strategy in response to submissions received and a recent Council resolution. The most significant changes were removal of the mandate for smaller dwellings (formerly Action 14a) and an amendment to the removal of minimum car parking requirements for smaller dwellings (Action 5a(1)). The removal of minimum car parking requirements was retained but now only applies to dwellings that are affordable housing.

The amended Strategy was considered by Council at its meeting of 14 March 2024 and then again at its meeting of 13 June 2024. At the 13 June meeting Council adopted the Strategy with a further minor change, being the deletion of (former) Action 5c, which was to amend the Coffs Harbour Local Environmental Plan 2013 to prohibit dwelling houses and secondary dwellings from Zone R3 Medium Density Residential and to prohibit secondary dwellings from Zone R4 High Density Residential.

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.