The Victorian Greens have slammed the Victorian Labor Government for selling off the remaining public land at the Fitzroy Gasworks site to private developers for 100% private housing with an 'abysmal' number of private community homes and absolutely no public housing.
We're in a housing crisis where we should be building more public homes on public land. Over decades Labor has demolished public housing, sold off public land to private developers and failed to build any new public housing.
Out of a total of 1170 homes at the Fitzroy Gasworks site, the Victorian Labor Government will require only 80 to be privately owned and operated community homes. There will be 156 so-called affordable homes, and the rest will be market-rate private apartments.
There will be no public housing, despite promises from Labor before both the 2018 and the 2022 state elections that there would be "an unprecedented amount" of public, social and affordable housing.
The 80 proposed community units makes up only 6.8% of the total homes and even this still falls short of Development Victoria's measly downgraded promise of 10% social housing.
Community housing is more expensive than public housing and community housing residents do not have the same rights. For example, public housing tenants have rent capped at 25% of household income and rights to a life-long lease, whereas community housing tenants have less security and can pay upward of 30% of their income plus commonwealth rent assistance.
The Victorian Greens say that selling off public land to private developers for massive profits is a pattern of behaviour from Labor as this announcement follows previous announcements of public land being sold off for private development including sites included in the Small Sites Pilot and VicRoads in Kew as well as Miller Street in Preston which was originally earmarked for public and community housing and will now be private apartments.
As stated by Gabrielle de Vietri who is the Victorian Greens spokesperson for Public and Affordable Housing and local member for Richmond where Gasworks is located:
"Gasworks reveals Labor's abject failure to address the housing crisis in any meaningful way. The 100% privatisation of this huge swath of inner city public land with an abysmal number of community homes is an insult to the community who are crying out for more public housing and it's a slap in the face for more than hundred thousand people languishing on Victoria's public housing waitlist.
"Gasworks is vacant public land - the perfect place to build hundreds of public homes. Labor has failed to build a single public home, instead giving away the land to private developers for private homes with an abysmal number of private community homes that doesn't even meet the measly amount they committed to in the first place. They've let the community down and the impact of this failure will be felt for years to come.
"We are in a housing crisis and we need to build more public housing on public land, yet this Labor government continues to sell off public land for private profit and is steamrolling ahead with the mass demolition and privatisation of our existing public housing."
