Australia: The NSW government has revealed plans to build apartment blocks for Sydney‘s essential workers, offering them reduced rent so they are not priced out of the city.
Today’s NSW budget will set aside AUD$450 million to build more than 400 BTR units over the next three years. The homes will be offered to teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters at a discount to the market rent. The discount is expected to be in the region of 20 per cent.
NSW premier Chris Minns said the government was thinking “outside the square” to improve affordability. “We’re expecting big towers and they’ll be exclusively for essential workers,” he said. “We can offer competitive rates because the government will own the land. It will be the builder of the project. Any profits that come about as a result of the project will be reinvested so that we can potentially envisage stage two or stage three of this.”
The government’s development arm, Landcom, will acquire up to four sites for the apartment blocks.
Minns said an audit was underway to find suitable government land, including close to the city where affordability was at its worst.
“We’re open to partnering with private landholders as well. It may be that we need to effectively enlarge our site, to get the foothold that we need to put up a big tower,” he said.
