City of Sydney announces new housing project

The competition is open to anyone that is interested in seeing change in the housing sector, where six winners will be chosen by a jury with $20,000 each up for grabs for the winners to develop their ideas.

Lord mayor Clover Moore said that Sydney is facing “a housing affordability crisis” and there is a need to address it with “a diversity of housing” in order to then support diversity in the local community.

“The city has assisted in the construction of 835 new affordable housing dwellings since 2004, by collecting levies from developers and selling our land to affordable housing providers at discount rates,” Ms Moore said.

“This type of affordable housing allows key workers such as teachers, nurses and paramedics to live close to their place of work, improving their wellbeing, shortening travel times and reducing congestion.

“While this is a proven mechanism, it’s simply not enough. We need to meet the needs of low-income workers, elderly residents and families in our city.”

She said that this is why the challenge is looking out for new ideas, which can range from “creative tenancy arrangements” such as shared or co-operative living through to new funding and delivery methods and unexplored ways of developing smaller sites.

Those interested in applying must abide by the following rules:

• The idea must show innovation in a minimum of two of the following areas: planning, design, ownership type, tenancy type, management (including sharing of facilities), construction, urban land supply and financing;
• Housing must be cheaper as a result, or meet the city’s definition of affordable housing, which is either housing managed or owned by government or by a registered community housing provider for very low to moderate income households, which ranges to under 50 per cent to 120 per cent of the median household income;
• The idea must be financially viable, as well a socially and environmentally sustainable;
• It must be liveable for residents; and
• It must also be able to be replicated and scalable.

Submissions open on 26 March and close on 8 May. Community feedback will also be accepted on the shortlisted ideas as part of the Sustainable Sydney 2050 strategic plan.