Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Unhoused Voices from the Threshold, a podcast about housing and homelessness in the Beaker Valley Shire.
The makers of this podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands, waterways and sky country across the Beaker Valley on which this work's been made.
Welcome to episode six, the final episode of Unhoused Voices from the Threshold.
In this episode, we will revisit many of the needs and issues raised in previous episodes and we will speak to members of local and state government, researchers and managers to discuss what is being done in government and in our shire to address these needs. First, here is our final vox pop for the series, which sums up much of the generous attitude of many in our community.
Hi. I believe you've recently been sharing your abode with a whole lot of people. Can you tell me what you've been doing?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: We'll have a little home and some friends were in between homes and they, you know, lovely people. So we all shacked up together and it's. It's a tiny little place, it's a little cottage. And so we all shacked up together. And that sort of also included some of their family, like their adult children coming to visit them. And so they stayed as well. And they were also foster carers previously and some young people that they still love and care about, they were needing somewhere as well for a bit. So then they also joined in and came along and there were quite a few people and we called it the Caravan of Kindness and everyone was welcome. But I guess it was just about sharing what we did have and we made it work and we did what we needed to, to, I guess, utilise that little space and to care for one another and to get through our daily lives. And it went well. It was very caring and it was humane and meals were shared and tasks were shared.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: We all worked together.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Everyone was incredibly helpful, so jobs were getting done.
It was very rewarding and it was very helpful.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: You're welcome.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Before we get to our interviews with people in state and local government, I wanted to mention some of the suggestions that have been made by our participants over the series, such as, let's buy all the young people vans to live in and why don't we have free, safe camping areas near our highways for people living in their vans to stop at?
Why don't we have refuges for young people and for older single men in the Bega Valley? And the most prevalent call is we need more affordable houses.
I particularly wanted to mention some of the great local projects and people I came across, like Mick Brosnan and the social justice advocates who currently have 27 caravans and eight transitional units in constant use around the Shire.
Restaurateur Chris Scrogg of Tilba, who is housing around 20 people in 15 vans throughout Bermagui and Tilbur, and who also actively seeks accommodation for those people who ask him for help. The Bermagui CWA has built units for older people at risk of homelessness and local people in Burmi also helped local character Greg get by in his crowdfunded van.
I've met young people whose families are happily taking in their friends, who are unable to live with their families.
And there are dozens of Beaker Valley people very active in this space who are just doing it. No fanfare, no accolades. Even our mayor told me of families he's welcomed into his home and the enterprise he kicked off in Marimbula during COVID so Sapphire Life opportunities.
So you see, some of these stories are uplifting, but many are not.
Currently, young people are often placed in local motels and hotels as crisis accommodation.
This is alongside older single men, but also others from our community who are struggling with housing, including those with mental health issues, people released from prison and re entering the population and others.
This has shocked many. I've spoken to many once again verbalising the need for local citizens to advocate for young people in our region.
Our constitution has the states responsible for housing and homelessness. We spoke with State labor member for Bega, Dr. Michael Holland.
[00:04:59] Speaker D: Hi, Lisa. Yes, the government is acutely aware of the homelessness crisis among young people and others in the Bega Valley. And I'm in communication with the Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Minister Jackson, on a regular basis.
The numbers we know, as of July 2025, there were 20 young people between 18 and 24 who were on the New South Wales Housing Register waiting for social housing in the bega Valley. Now, five of these applicants were priority and 17 were general.
And at the same time, there were 11 single older men, mainly around 60 plus, who were waiting for housing as well. Now, during the financial year of 24, 25, actually 54 young people of the same age were assisted with temporary housing in the Bega Valley. So we are achieving housing for people. And during the same time, seven single older men were assisted with temporary accommodation there. So in terms of what's available in the Bega Valley Shire, lga, we have Bega Valley Health Youth Homelessness Support Service, and that supports young people between 16 and 24 and that's delivered by South East Women and Children's Services. We have Southern New South Wales Homelessness Youth Assistance program that's for 12 to 15 year olds who are unaccompanied as well as the Bega Homelessness Support Service and Strengthening Aboriginal Tendencies program which supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are at risk of homelessness. And we're delivering housing in the Bega valley. There's been three new social homes delivered just in June while another 35 are in the pipeline for delivery. One of which will be completed by the end of the year.
Apart from delivering these, there's been a total of 75 properties from March 2023 to July 2025 that have needed to undergo vacant restoration works and now they've also been are re tenanted.
So there's 0.6 of a million dollars in work has been issued to upgrade 16 more homes and these works are scheduled to be completed by the end of September. And at a statewide policy level, New South Wales government's reforming temporary accommodation and investing in homelessness collaboration networks. Because we want to have a major shift to prevent and reduce homelessness across the state. So we have a new homelessness strategy which is led homes New South Wales and that's a whole of government 10 year strategy to make homelessness rare, brief and not repeated. And that'll shift the focus from short term crisis responses to early intervention, person centred support and long term housing outcomes.
There'll be key reforms in the first stage of the implementation and that's going to replace hotel and motel stays with more appropriate homeless accommodation.
And it'll develop local housing and homelessness collaboration networks in partnership with other services, local government and housing providers as well. We're going to establish a New South Wales street sleeping registry so that will give us data about service coordination so we know who is sleeping rough and they don't have to keep retelling their story and coordinating access to housing and support. And there's going to be a new targeted response for young people and aboriginal people. And importantly we want to reduce the exits from government services with people going into homelessness and that will occur through cross agency governance, referral pathways and better system response. So that's being supported by the New south Wales government. $6.6 billion building homes for New South Wales programs. This is the largest investment in public housing in the state's and that also includes over $500 million to expand and improve homeless services.
And an additional 20 million was invested in this year's budget to expand the existing crisis and transitional housing.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Thank you to Dr. Michael Holland. I will just point out that those numbers he mentioned as being assisted would be through CWACS and Mission Australia which do such great work in.
But they have almost 40 young people alone on their books as needing assistance with housing at any time.
Still, it's good to hear that there is a new homelessness strategy led by Holmes New South Wales and that specifically there will be work done to reduce the need for hotel and motel accommodation for young people in New South Wales. And we hope that we see a good portion of that assistance in the Bega Valley. I will follow up with Dr. Holland over coming months.
I managed to sit down with Bega Valley Shire Mayor Russell Fitzpatrick to get his view of homelessness and housing in the valley. What do you think affordable housing is or looks like in the Bega Valley? Is it apartments, share housing? What is it exactly?
[00:10:30] Speaker E: Well, it's a whole mixture of all of those. For some people affordable housing is trading down their existing existing property down to a smaller property as they grow older and having some money for quality of life. So there's a whole mixture that comes into it all.
If you look at the definition, I think there's a definition in our affordable housing policy that it's basically 30% of whatever your income is goes to a mortgage repayment and if you can afford that, well that decides whether that property is basically an affordable house now and then on a rental basis exactly the same that 30% of your if your income is classified as the affordable rent that you can pay. So they're the basic principles that people call affordable Housing Council.
We've tried to be on the front foot with our planning and looked at centralising our Planning around our CBDs a lot smaller developments than what were previously in lot size around that.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: How does that help?
[00:11:28] Speaker E: Well it gives it generational change to actually have more housing on that land instead of having your four bedroom one house in acre block, allow six or eight units on that block sort of thing.
So they refer to it as infill development. One of my biggest complaints all the time is that the planning that councils are tied to is set on a 10 year gap. Like we did what's called the land environment Plan for the Bega Valley Shire in 2013.
The work on that started in 2008. It was finally adopted in 2013 and that still applies in 2025. That disinct it for exactly what you said has happened after Covid that people moved the area and says long term supply and sustained supply over a period of Time hasn't occurred. And then we have to do a planning proposal to the state government and they have to agree that they'll allow more development in those areas that tied up. And we can go into all the green and red tape, which biodiversity legislation, all this just inhibits council actually doing anything. And there's some people who don't want those things done in their backyards.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Apartment building is not classically what you think of doing in the regions, is it?
[00:12:33] Speaker E: No.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: In a place like the Bega Valley, not really.
[00:12:35] Speaker E: But when you're in a town, say like Eden or Marimbula, and your land availability is restricted, especially around Murrumbula, is really restricted, you have to look at that. But again, it's generational change because at the end of the day that's a family home that most of the family are attached to. So to say you should get rid of that four bedroom house that generations are growing up through to come back and have six or eight units on the site or duplexes on the site. There's a big family change and a lot of things that need to be happening in that space. Well, you have that attachment. Yeah.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Projects like the acacia pond set up there, are they workable?
[00:13:12] Speaker E: They're great for residents who want to trade down their property. There's no council rates. That's my problem. They don't pay individually council rates the lots on it. The owners of the estate pay the rates and they just pay one base rate. So that provides a whole different set of scenarios for council. But they seem to be a growing trend. We've got one in Eden. Last week we passed a thing for Milangandy Kalaroo Caravan Park. Want to change that sort of model and put permanence on it. And I think there's one at Bermagui as well that there's a DA lodge for. That's quite controversial with a lot of people at Bermagui, but most of the times they're limited to over 55s, which I disagree with. There shouldn't be a limitation on them.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Why do you think there has been no real investment in social housing in the last few decades?
[00:13:53] Speaker E: I think it's been a shortfall of government, both state and federal and probably in some ways even sometimes you've got to accept your own criticism. Local government, in some ways that we haven't been actively enough pursuing that or advocating for it.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Why do you think that is? Do you think we don't pay attention to it?
[00:14:11] Speaker E: Yeah. And I think a lot of people think, well, whose responsibility is It. It gets back to whose responsibility is and no one really wants to accept responsibility goes around in circles. Yeah. And no one does any advocacy until there's an election time and everyone says we've got to do something about it.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Is it up to the community to keep reminding government at all levels of what they see is needed in the community?
[00:14:34] Speaker E: Yeah. And it's up to government to be aware of it too, that, you know, how many people are sleeping rough, knowing the numbers and having their hands right on it. I'm sure a lot of the people in the Bega Valley don't realize how many people we've got sleeping rough or even homeless.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: I've been quite shocked at the numbers.
[00:14:49] Speaker E: So am I. So at least what I'm shocked about is the type of people, like. Usually we think we stigmatise the type of people who are homeless at the present time in a lot of ways. But I've got friends who are earning incomes, who can't afford a house and can't afford a rent and they're earning good incomes and a good job, who are sleeping in their cars.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: So that's what they've resorted to.
[00:15:09] Speaker E: That's what they've resorted to because they can't find anything.
And then they'll go to a mate's place for a shower or they'll try and might even go to a sports ground or a surf club or down the beach somewhere and have a quick shower and go off to work. And even their employees probably don't even know they're doing that. We sometimes just stigmatise it to people with mental health problems and stuff like that. But it's far greater than all of that now.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: It's sad that there's not somewhere for those people to go even for a night or two.
[00:15:35] Speaker E: Yeah. And there's been attempts to try and make those sort of places available, I think, across the border. I know I was involved in trying to fund money, raise money for St James House at Marimbula. That didn't quite work out, unfortunately, which is only two units. But it was the start of that social housing that we were looking at for emergency or crisis accommodation, which is not defined in any Planning act or any state government act. It's still not defined anywhere. So as to what provides that. There's been changes in regulations around caravan parks, what they could do to, you know, I know up north, I'm friends with a lot of the mayors in the flooded areas up north and how they. And we talk about how they can get their legislation Changed quickly for a two or three year period to get them through things, and that's happening up there. What I find difficult is that we've got things happening at a federal level and Snowy. I'll use Snowy Hydro as an example.
Snowy Hydro, which is great for the area, great for businesses in Cooma and even for people down here who may have rental properties. But we lost 110 rental properties out of the market to Snowy Hydro. So that has a drastic effect on the price people are willing to pay. We've tried to change a few things. We've been talking to a motel owner in Marimbula about changing his to Australia units instead of a motel. But then he's got to meet the planning regulations, which a motel doesn't meet permanent living regulations generally. So the cost to convert that is horrendous.
So we need not a relaxation of those rules, but we need some common sense to come in to say, look, this is still pretty safe. It's in the middle of the Marimbula, because walkway is only one and a half meters wide and doesn't mean two and a half metres wide. That says it's got to be fully accessible. Do we really need that in a housing crisis? Our planners, who are unfortunate in the thing to say, oh, they can't comply unless you do this. So there's got to be some movement around that legislation that allows councils to decide their needs at a specific time. And even living in a motel. I know people who have been living full time in a motel for a long time and we've got probably four or five motels who have been doing that and luckily they have.
But under the legislation they're not supposed to be any more than a certain number of days.
And that's who's going to knock on the door and say, I've got to move out now, but you can move out for one day, then come back for another 30. Look, it's just. All that legislation is just ridiculous and that was put there for a reason.
Later on, some common sense has got to take place and I'm not on either side of the fence. I'm not in the Airbnb pocket and I'm not in. In the, you know, it should be permanent rental pocket. Like our tourism industry needs Airbnb as well. So to survive and continue to grow. So you gotta be pretty balanced about how you look at that. But at the same time, we wrote out to all property owners with secondary dwellings in the Begavelly Shire and asked them would they consider rent. And I Got very little replies. They were basically unoccupied houses through most of the year. We got very little reply.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: The formation of the affordable housing group is that helping?
[00:18:32] Speaker E: It creates good open discussion about things as objectives. There have been some objectives and KPIs that we've sort of achieved through that. And once the Narayra park sale and the reinvestment into Rawlinson street with Southern Cross housing, that's one of the good ones that's come out of it. There's a couple of others as well. We're going through an affordable housing contribution scheme at the present time.
We'll continue working through that. Whether that'll get through the councillors, I'm not sure. Hopefully it will and that'll now it's a small contribution by people who get an up zoning on their property. People are for it and against it though.
Why should they have to pay? Sort of scenario. But you're receiving a huge benefit by the council rezoning it. So what's wrong with making a bit of a contribution? Sometimes we just need to get back to the basics and I'll give you my example in life. So when I was 16, lived Pamela, started working in the bank at 16, didn't have a license, got transferred to delegate with no license. Yeah. So I lived in the back of the pub and then lived in Shearing quarters because that's what you had to do until people got to know me. And then I got private board with family and then I went out. When I went out west out near Albury and that a little old lady had private board that one of the school teachers and I boarded in her house. So sometimes we've got to get back to those sort of models that like when I was in the bank, that's where they generally had a house that you either all went and lived in or a little old lady. Lovely old lady might have cooked you three meals a day and you paid board.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: You've done a lot of lovely old ladies in your.
[00:20:04] Speaker E: I've got all the time for lovely ladies.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Boarding houses are something quite interesting. Is it difficult for someone?
[00:20:11] Speaker E: No, I think you can do it today.
It can be done today. But I think people just avoid doing that for some reason.
Society's not as it's not in our DNA currently to what it was back in the 80s and 70s. So there's nothing wrong with just living in a bedroom and then having a communal shower block and also a communal toilet for people to go to, you know, a roster system to do the cleaning. It doesn't matter what it is if you still got a roof over your head and you're living somewhere and you're in a social environment that creates interaction, it's got to be good not only for mental health but for everything that you do in life. So, yeah, I've lived in boarding houses a few years of my life, so I think they're great.
There's more than one answer, but it's one of the answers that can be thrown into the mix that should be looked at.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Thank you to Mayor Fitzpatrick for his time there.
Yes, boarding houses. These dwellings are experiencing a significant comeback and resurgence in New South Wales, driven by increasing demand for affordable housing and supported by changes in planning incentives, new designs and a shift in investor interest.
A surge in applications for boarding houses, including new generation models, has been noted, filling a crucial gap in the rental market.
The term new generation boarding house is being applied to these purpose built modern versions of boarding houses, which still often include shared amenities and services.
The Southern Cross housing development at Rawlinson street in Bega includes plans for two of these boarding houses comprising 13 beds.
Dr. Holland and Mayor Fitzpatrick both also mentioned the use of motels as crisis accommodation.
I caught up with the Director of Community Environment and Planning for the Shire, Emily Harrison, and asked her about this issue from her perspective.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: There's a number of different ways that we know they're being used and it's hard the language we use, there's sort of definitions and then colloquial ways. So I have heard of motels being used in a way for people who are in crisis, as in they don't have anywhere else to live.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: That's correct.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: It may not be crisis accommodation by definition as to what the state looks at in how they provide crisis accommodation accommodation, but I understand it's in a crisis situation.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: And some of those are being used as permanent residences.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yes. For people who would otherwise be perhaps homeless as well. The Mayor mentioned that people were wanting to change their motels from a motel style to a strata style accommodation. And he suggested that the red tape around these things could perhaps be relaxed little, so that could happen and therefore provide very small apartments for people to live in. What. What do you. Have you had to deal with any.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Of that yet at the moment, the way the legislation works and the building code of Australia, there are different rules for short term, you know, living in something very short term, like a motel which is intended to be a few nights, maybe a week, you know, it's not intended for long term or permanent living versus what the rules are for when you are intending to live somewhere permanently.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: So that changeover is difficult.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: It is difficult and there are costs involved with that. When you're looking at permanent residential accommodation, your fire safety is a lot more stringent. You need to think more about amenity, open space, cooking facilities, which then leads to fire.
You know, safety just, you know, and none of it is insurmountable. It's all doable and it's all there for very good reason. But it can be costly. And I think it really, though, is reflecting the intent of a motel is a few night stays. So if you've only got a microwave and a kettle and very limited space, a little window, that's fine. But if you're living there, you need more than a microwave and a kettle.
So that's the way the legislation is structured and the intent, I think, is really positive.
But in terms of it being a quick or easy solution, it often isn't because there's time and money involved with that.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Do you have a number of motels that are wanting to do this at the moment? Is that something that's happening in the Bega Valley?
[00:24:39] Speaker B: I have anecdotally heard of a couple of motels that are considering their future options.
Council did approve a concept DA for a motel in Marimbula, I think it was last year, to convert from motel to permanent residential accommodation.
That's a bit different. It's a concept da. So there's still further work that has to be done and a DA that has to be approved to enact that. I think it shows though, council is supportive of smaller dwellings where we can facilitating motels to transition. Transition into strata or permanent residential accommodation.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: When I spoke to the mayor, he did tell me during our conversation that council voted to not cap nights on Airbnb. There is much research around Airbnb and how it affects communities and housing, but the research seems to support both capping nights and not capping nights and is pretty topical considering we are a huge tourism area. I asked Emily Harrison about this issue also, but if you're interested, there are some links to articles about Airbnb. In the show Notes, Emily mentions the state government review into this issue.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: The state government has been doing a review of long and short term rental accommodation and the intent of that review is was to look at and find levers that could be moved around to try and get the right balance. Because like you said, short term rental accommodation can be really important from a tourism perspective. And our shire is very heavily reliant on tourism. But that then has an effect on Housing availability.
And it's a really complex situation and one of the things that we were hoping would come out of that review, and we're still waiting to see what comes out, is a range of different levers or mechanisms that each council could go which are the right ones for our shire. And even potentially within that, look at the differences, because short term rental in Marimbula, for example, might have a very different impact to short term rentals in Bemboka or Cobargo or, you know, a more rural area. So even within a shire you've got.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Differences and you've got, I mean, it's not always tourism, is it? A lot of essential workers and, you know, temporary workers come in and need that short term accommodation as well.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Absolutely. And what the piece of information that I think would be really useful or helpful if there is a way to get this, is an understanding of if you were to impose a cap on short term rental or if you were to prohibit it in certain areas, will that result in houses being transferred to the long term rental market or will they stay vacant and be a second holiday home that's used once a year? Really? Yeah, that's the question and that's a really bad outcome.
[00:27:49] Speaker F: Well, nothing's changed. I mean, it's got worse because nothing's happened.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Feminist and researcher Ludo McFerrin, OAM has worked in the domestic violence and women's housing space for many years now retired to the Bega Valley. A study she co authored in 2005 showed that homelessness among older women was increasing and also showed it was a myth that most older people lived in care accommodation.
In fact, 92% of people over 65 lived at home and wanted to remain in place and to age in place in their communities.
Now, many years on, I asked Ludo if she could talk about this issue in terms of older women being one of the fastest growing cohorts of homeless in our society.
[00:28:38] Speaker F: The homelessness services said, we have a crisis and we don't understand what's happening. Can you look into it? And the crisis was they were being inundated by homeless women. There were no services in Australia for homeless older women. And these were not older women who had been homeless over decades. So it wasn't chronically homeless women, it was first time homeless older women. And so I had a look, really it was about fitting together the jigsaw, joining the dots if you like. Because elements like the introduction of no fault divorce back in the mid-70s, so led to a real peak in divorce.
But the financial effect of Divorce on women is quite different for men.
Women usually end up with the kids, usually if they're working, have to go back to part time work because they've got care of the kids.
If the family home has been sold, then usually can't afford to get back into the housing market.
If they've got any money, they usually give it to the kids.
On it goes. And as we know so well known now, superannuation was introduced, but women retired with a fraction of the superannuation of men. So women were aging much, much poorer than men.
They were working part time and were renting.
Now we interviewed 30 women and frankly after about the second woman, I just knew the story.
It was such a common story.
Most of those women had worked all their lives, were proud of the work they'd done and managed to hold their heads above water. They'd experienced domestic and sexual assault, but he was not that that made them homeless.
They had kept working and kept to move over their heads. But as they aged into their 50s and 60s, they were hitting one of two problems. One was age discrimination or they might be working in a service industry or hospitality and their bodies were giving up. So it was a health issue, a notice commission issue and, and they lost their jobs. And it was losing the job, not being able to afford the roof over their head that suddenly jettisoned these women into homelessness.
And most of the women we talked to talked about their mental health. So they were not homeless because of mental health.
And this is another myth. They were experiencing mental health problems because of being homeless, as any of us would. So we found there was myth after myth around this issue and we came up with some solutions. We proposed these, we took it back to the homelessness sector, we took it to government, but frankly, in the past 15 years nothing has been done. I mean what we need is a massive investment in the ability of people to downsize.
Say in the Bega Valley Shire, the most common household structure is three to four bedrooms, but the most common household type is one to two people.
So we've, I think we've got enough houses and I've, I've heard, I mean that's just my opinion. I've heard that expressed a great many times, including by at least one government minister.
It's a housing mismatch.
We've got enough houses. So when you hear constantly the housing lobby or property lobbies or whatever, talk about loosening up red tape so we can build more houses, geez, no.
Let's have a look at this mismatch.
And if we're building, let's build a lot more single person, self contained units, decent units.
Government has really failed to address this and I think the government is absolutely captive to the multiple housing owners who are taking advantage of things like negative gearing to gouge money out of the public.
The public purse.
And housing policy in Australia has created a huge inequity and it'll take, it won't change until at least 51% of Australian voters are renting and force political change onto the parties.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: I reached out to Emily Harrison again and we started out by talking to the issues raised by Ludo and many journalists currently about our ageing population and the housing mismatch.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Look, I completely agree. There is absolutely a mismatch between the type of houses that we have and that people are building and the type of housing that we need. And part of that, I think, stems from, you know, what's traditionally been the great Australian dream of, you know, a suburban block with a big house.
And there may be a point in your life where you need that. You have a partner, you have kids, you need that space, you're using that house and those bedrooms and that land.
But there is, our population is aging and there is an increase in those empty bedrooms in those larger family homes that aren't being used by a family anymore. There's a growing cohort of older people, singles or couples, who would like to downsize, but there's nowhere to downsize to.
And so I think we, and this is a generalisation, we're still building for the great Australian dream, but what we actually need and what now, we haven't really shifted to, which is those smaller, more flexible apartments, villas, things like that. And one thing that I think we all can get better at thinking about when we build is about adaptable housing. So thinking about our future needs for the house, we're not always going to need a four bedroom family home. At some point we're going to want something smaller. So how can we make housing that is adaptable?
And if you look at the liveable housing guidelines, they provide guidance on how to make sure that homes can be retrofitted as occupants age.
And if you're thinking adaptability, it might be things like having a bedroom on the ground floor with your kitchen and living area. So as you age, if you've got a two story dwelling, there might be a different use for the upstairs later on, or maybe the layout of the house means that in future you could look at having a smaller sort of primary dwelling of that house and use the other space for something else. So there's definitely, definitely a mismatch. We need to start seeing those smaller, smaller housing being developed and that's often what people want. They don't want a large garden, they don't want a lot of extra house to look after. They need something that's fit for purpose.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: You might be a young family about to have three kids, so you need that now. So this consideration at the design stage is what you're saying, you can set it up so that you can adapt the home as it, as you go along life?
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think the other thing too is that because we have a lot of larger homes in our shire that are being lived in by one or two people who have nowhere else to move to, there's no downsizing options.
We're still building the bigger houses because that is the need, because the young family is looking for a home. If we had some smaller downsizing options, those larger homes would be freed up. So it's a bit of a catch 22 in a way. We need to kind of shift. I think our thinking.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Emily Harrison has granted me a lot of her time. We've spoken of options developers and home builders might consider when thinking about housing in this new landscape. We also spoke about tiny homes and many ways in which you could think outside the box in terms of housing in the Bega Valley Shire.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Wallamla is an area that we've identified as one of two really good sites for future urban expansion in our shire. So we've identified South Beaker and Wallumla as areas that can grow relatively easily. They're relatively well connected to water and sewer transport and things.
Wallamla, I think the projections are that we could nearly triple the size of Wallamla. Now, this is 25 to 30 plus years, but Wallamla definitely has capacity and we'd need new infrastructure to support new families and new housing, but it definitely has that potential.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: And with Wallamla, I noticed that there's quite an active, growing community group who wants to have a say about that development. So do you welcome that kind of, you know, collaboration or information sharing with the communities that you're going to be? I mean, we're growing, we are growing populations. So is that something you welcome?
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. And there's a couple of ways that that input or that engagement can happen. So. So with the urban expansion project, we did what we call structure plans, which is where we looked at Willamla and Bega and went, right, if we were going to rezone or just support more urban Growth, what would that look like? And we had a lot of community consultation as part of that.
I do remember there was a Wallamla group that came and spoke at a council meeting, at a public forum and had provided submissions.
So that's one way. Definitely, we're looking big pictures picture those community groups and even just residents, any resident, whether they live in the area that could potentially become housing or whether they just live in the shire, can have their say. And that's really important.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: We have growing population and they have to live somewhere. But also people are very, very attached to the character of their towns. I mean, it's very beautiful, big valley and the towns are gaunt.
So I guess people are worried about losing that, you know, that character of a small country town. But it's a human thing. We're growing, we have babies.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: You're right. It will have an impact on our towns and villages and it will change our shire into the future. And I think the challenge is to make sure that that change happens in the right way and in a way that we're comfortable with, that it's planned and doesn't just kind of randomly happen.
And one of the ways I think, that we try and look at that is we have what we call local character statements. So we have these things where we talk about each of our towns and villages and what we want. We, and I say we, the community. This was all went through a lot of community consultation and had a lot of input. So we've, I guess, tried to put into words what the feel of each town and village is.
And then we consider that when any development comes in to go. Right. Does this align with the future character statement of whatever town it is?
[00:39:56] Speaker A: So that sounds really beautiful. Is that available for people to look at or is that.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Yes, it's on our website in our local strategic planning site.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: I'll get the link from you and put it in the show notes too.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: And the other thing too, and this is where there is a bit of a challenge. Like you said, said that we have a beautiful, beautiful area. This shire is just stunning.
And people do like that. We have more space. We're not a city.
But our shire is also heavily constrained by topography. So it's hilly, bushfire risk, flooding, biodiversity, which is a blessing. We need to protect that and we need to balance that with housing need. So most of the areas that we can more easily get more housing is what we call infill, which is either within our existing towns and villages, so increasing the density within those towns and villages, or looking at that urban expansion, like we said with Bega and Mullumla in particular, where we seek to grow, you know, get the boundaries of that town to just edge out to allow for more housing.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: We don't think of apartments as an option, but in fact that are apartments an option and like multi, dual occupancy and things like that. Are they options we should look at more?
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think there's a range of different housing options that people could consider that maybe they're not aware of.
And there have been some changes in the last couple of years that council's made that enable more density of housing in certain areas.
So in every zone in our shire now, except RU4, you can have a secondary dwelling. Now you need consent, but you can, it's permissible to have a secondary dwelling.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: What is a secondary dwelling?
[00:41:46] Speaker B: So traditionally, historically we've called that a granny flat. So if you've got a primary dwelling, you can build a granny flat. It needs to be smaller than the main house.
There's a couple of little parameters of what makes it a secondary dwelling as opposed to another primary dwelling. Now you'd need to consider your land and how that works with connection to services and access. And so there might be cases where it's tricky to do that. But in theory in every zone you can have a secondary dwelling with approval. The other thing that I think's really interesting is that I think it's that historically or traditionally we've all kind of had in our minds that we want the larger block with the large four bedroom home and that isn't necessarily what we need or want anymore. And now there are more options. So instead of building that four bedroom house, you could consider a dual occupancy. So having two attached or detached dwellings on that land potentially also what we call dual occupancies, so things like villas or smaller units, terrace houses. Sorry, I was thinking there's a lot of lots at the moment where traditionally you might look and go, I'll put a house on there, you could put three villas on that. And so you can get a lot more density and with smart design you can still, it doesn't have to feel cramped or dense. In our CBDs, there's more options now for shop top housing. And I know that description makes you think, oh well, that's an apartment on top of the shop. But actually what our lep, our local environmental plan allows now is for housing at the back. So you might have a larger block with a commercial shop front and a backyard that you're not using. You can put some form of housing in there, whether it's some villas or apartments or something like that. So there's lots of options.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Do you know that the woman I interviewed who had lived in her car for nine years, Julie in Bemagiri, she now lives in a small apartment behind a shop in Bermagui. Exactly that. So she's very happy there. I thought I'd let you know that now.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: That's wonderful to hear.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Can you remind me what manor homes are?
[00:43:53] Speaker B: Yes. Manor homes are a residential flat building that contains three or four dwellings. So it's. If you picture an old style house, a big, grand, large house and the way it ends up is it's actually four discreet houses within that, or it might be three, but it's another option in a way to develop housing where you can get more density but it still looks like you're maintaining the character of the area.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: What about developers?
[00:44:25] Speaker B: I guess council's role really is to set the parameters and there's a few things we can do and have done to, to try and incentivise smaller dwellings. So reducing the minimum lot size in our seward towns and villages. So that means developers could potentially, where previously they may have only been able to have one dwelling, they could now build two or maybe three villas.
So reducing the minimum lot size. Looking in Bega, Eden and Marimbula, we're currently looking at the CBD areas and the looking at whether we need some changes, whether some height increases are necessary. There's a whole range of different, I guess, settings that we can tinker with to try and encourage development in a smarter way, I guess. I think from a developer's perspective, it's about understanding what you can do even or an owner, if you own land, what can you actually do with your land? So before you go, oh, I'm yep, I'm going to build another three or four bedroom home, look into it. Can you build a dulock or villas or a manor house? Can you do terraces?
What's permissible on that site?
What will the site let you do? When you look at water, sewer, stormwater runoff, bushfire risk, all of that, there might be a different type of development you can do that you hadn't thought of previously. So it's definitely worth looking into.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: Tell us about some of the other ways that people might be able to think outside the box a little bit. Emily, you've mentioned the livable housing and dual occupancy and secondary dwellings. What's rural land sharing?
[00:46:05] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a really interesting one. In our rural zones, rural land sharing is an option. So that allows if you've got a block of land that's at least 10, 10 hectares in size. So 10 hectares or more, it's rural zoned and you've got a dwelling entitlement for that lot, you can have up to four dwellings to be built on that. It's also a sliding scale, so if your land is much bigger, you might be able to have five or six dwellings in total. So it depends on the size of the land. They're 10 hectares. And I think when you think about a farming community and how farms have been run in the past, you can understand why multiple houses on a farm is really important for the longevity of that farm with the workers, with the families that live and run their farm. But now there's potential use for that housing for other people. It's not limited to the family or people that work on the farm, it's just housing. So there's more options there for more housing on rural land.
There are examples here and in other states where people work together and build separate homes with communal spaces on a block of land that traditionally might have only had a four bedroom house on it, and now there might be three couples or three groups living in a type of community which, you know, that's a type of living that you have to be interested in. But it can work.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Is that community title? It can be, yes, but it doesn't have to be. I did go down and visit some people at Bend, which is community title, and they do exactly that. They have, and very sustainably as well. They are totally set up on permaculture design principles, but they have a number of affordable dwellings, communal areas, communal laundries, communal socialising spaces, communal gardens. And it seems to be working extremely well. And it's been going for some time. I'm very surprised there's only that one in the valley or the other community title.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: There are some, but a community title doesn't have to be. It's primarily for managing shared property. It can be a really good model and it doesn't even have to, you know, it's. What's the common thing that brings you all together for the Bend? It is that sustainability and environmental and it's a fantastic community.
But you can have another community title where it's just you want to live with people you can connect with and have that community within a community.
So it doesn't have to be. You'd have to have, I guess, some kind of shared understanding to want to live that close together and share the space.
But it doesn't have to be that same model.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: So you can do that on a urban block.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: It's doable.
And again, you'd have to check your zoning, check what you're trying to achieve, check your minimum lot sizes. There's a bit of research to do, so I can't sort of blanket say yes, every single lot you can do that. But in theory that's absolutely an option to consider.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: I wanted to ask you if there were ways of council assisting people in selecting designs of homes that were going to create a more easy kind of ride through DAs and things like that. So you mentioned the patent book. Is that something you can tell us a little bit about? Is that a helpful thing for people to know about?
[00:49:32] Speaker B: So the New South Wales government has released this patent book and it contains designs, a few different types of designs for different housing types. And the intention of that is you've already got the designs done and there's an complying development pathway if you meet certain conditions that you can use, which is a simpler and quicker process to a da. So compliant development already exists. And if you're building a house or another structure, but in this context, housing, you can either go through a DA or if you meet certain conditions, you could do compliant development. So this pattern book gives you the design and it's done in a way to enable compliant development.
The caveat for our shire is that that complying development is switched off if there's bushfire risk or flooding risk or a few other things like that. And for us, our shire is heavily bushfire prone, so it reduces the availability of that compliant development pathway. It may still be available in some cases, particularly in towns and villages that are already built up.
But the other thing it's can do, you could still, if those designs work for you, you could still purchase the designs and lodge a da. And at least those designs are, you know, it's a more cost effective way because you're not having an architect create plans for you, you're using existing plans, there's a small fee for them, so it's more cost effective, but you'd still be going through the DA pathway.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: What about tiny homes? Emily, tell us a bit about tiny homes.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Tiny homes are a really challenging topic from a planning legislation perspective.
So tiny homes, I know there's a lot of interest in tiny homes, a lot of interest in people, you know who would like to live in a smaller home for a variety of different reasons. And tiny homes are quite popular in that way at the Moment. From a planning perspective, the legislation doesn't refer to tiny homes, it doesn't define tiny homes. So when we're looking at a use of land or a structure for someone to live in, there is nothing that guides us around what a tiny home is. What are the appropriate stages, standards, should it be considered differently to the other options that we have? And those other options are building.
So you can build a tiny home or a small home and you can do that through a development application.
There's a project that we had a look into called the Gosford Tiny Home Project and our strategic planning team, you know, did a hypothetical and said, could we do that here? And the answer is yes, we could do something very similar to that here already. So a tiny home as a building is one avenue and if you meet the building code and you meet the requirements there, you could build a small or tiny home to live in through a DA pathway.
Some tiny homes that are on wheels might meet the definition of caravan. So if they do, then that's another clear pathway to look at. Then whether the caravan is being used ancillary to a dwelling or whether it's being used as a secondary dwelling. And depending on that, there's another pathway that you could work through to be able to do that.
But then I think there's this area in the middle that isn't defined by legislation and that is what's causing a lot of tension.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: Isn't there a need for the legislation to be looked at very carefully and changed?
[00:53:18] Speaker B: I think it is well overdue for the legislation to be reviewed. We need more housing, we need smaller housing.
Some people would prefer to live in a very small dwelling for a variety of different reasons and we should be able to enable that.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Is it something that's on the current agenda?
[00:53:37] Speaker B: So the state government has started a review of those pieces of legislation, particularly to do with buildings and caravans and what is a caravan and what isn't.
We contributed to that. We've been in consultations, we've written submissions and the last update we had from the state government was that it's still being worked on and is not a high priority at the moment, which from our perspective is really disappointing. From our perspective, this issue really needs to be resolved.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: Two housing projects are about to be started in the Bega Valley. One is the Southern Cross Housing Development at Rawlinson street which includes a residential flat building with 28 dwellings, multi dwelling housing which is 20. Another 21 dwellings, two boarding houses of 13 bedrooms total and a subtotal of new dwellings which is 62.
And then there's the Barracks Street TAFE site, a collaboration with Homes New south Wales, comprising 100 homes, 68 private homes, eight affordable homes, 24 social housing residences and a 20 unit complex of smaller accessible homes, do you think that these developments will go far enough to address the current shortfall?
And how do we as a community make sure housing is kept as a high priority into the future?
[00:55:12] Speaker B: Those two projects are a great start. They are fantastic. We need them and it'll be really wonderful to see them break ground and then have the ribbon cutting when people are actually moving in or the lots are being sold.
That will be fantastic. But the reality is we know, you know, we need more affordable housing and we need more housing.
The Bega Valley affordable housing strategy, which you can find on our website, that sets an indicative target for our shire of needing two and a half thousand additional affordable, including social houses by 2036.
So when you look at what homes New South Wales and what Southern Cross Housing are investing in our shire at the moment, and there's a few other homes, New South Wales developments going on as well that are smaller because they manage the social housing stock. So they're looking at opportunities to where they might have one or two dwellings, replace those with 10 units. So they're looking to increase their stock. When you add all of that up, it's around about 100 social affordable dwellings between those two developments.
So it's a really good start.
But we definitely need to see further investment in the shire. And I think in terms of what can we do, we need to keep advocating to the state for more housing. We need to make sure that these fantastic announcements that are being made and the federal government to do with more social housing, crisis accommodation, transitional accommodation, all of those things that the Bega Valley gets a share in that.
And you know, the other thing we need, and this is a tough one, but we need cheaper and quicker methods of construction. Now, I don't know who can actually control that, but it's, it's absolutely the cost of construction and the time it takes to build something are factors that are, I guess, impacting our ability in this shire to create more housing.
We were one of the few and first regional councils to enter a collaboration agreement with Holmes New South Wales which committed them to looking at developments in our shire. The TAFE development came from that. There's another one that they're looking at, they have another development in Eden which is replacing two existing dwellings with 10 townhouses. We are seeing investment in our shire.
You're absolutely right. It's not enough when you look at our need, but we are. We are seeing progress.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: Thanks to everyone who's participated in this podcast.
I was often impressed with the generosity and kindness of people I spoke with all over the Bega Valley during the project.
I've put many links in the show, notes for services, and also some relevant research. There is also an email there if you'd like to reach out with a story or keep in touch with developments in this space. Thank you to Candy McVittie for the theme music and to Ronnie Aliff for the image.
And thank you for listening to Unhoused Voices from the Threshold.
This podcast has been produced by the Bega Valley Shire Library Service in collaboration with Sapphire Stories, a local storytelling platform.
It has been made possible with funds achieved through the New South Wales Premier's Department's Social Cohesion Grant for Local Government, as obtained by the Bega Valley Shire Council.
