SWAN Hill Council director of development and planning Heather Green has highlighted the grim housing reality for seasonal workers in the municipality.
“The going rate for a mattress on the floor in a house for a seasonal agricultural worker is about $150 a week,” she recently told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into rental and housing affordability.
“There could be 10 people living in a standard three-bedroom house – not ideal circumstances for our workers.”
Ms Green told a hearing there were job opportunities but not enough dwellings of any sort, from seasonal worker shared accommodation through to four-bedroom houses for large families.
“Council is the main developer of land in Swan Hill, because the private sector failed some 20 years ago,” she said.
“Council has now produced 450 lots for residential development, and we are looking at selling some other council-owned land for accommodation. We have built four houses in Robinvale and plan to build another four to try and stimulate the private sector market.
“To put in infrastructure in regional and rural areas can be twice as much as Melbourne, which just makes it financially not viable for the private sector to develop land.
“Now, having said that, we have at least got a couple of minor developments happening in Swan Hill at the moment … We are lucky we have got adequately zoned land.”
Ms Green said rents in Swan Hill would be “far more reasonable than other parts of the state”, but had increased “significantly” in the past four years.
She said availability was the issue.
“The demand increases the price,” she said.
“Four years ago you could get a nice unit for probably $200, $250 a week, but now you are paying $400 for that. So it is the demand that is driving up the price.”
See also: Grim data as Swan Hill rental squeeze continues
https://www.theguardian.com.au/property-news/grim-data-as-swan-hill-rental-squeeze-continues
