Car parks on Sydney’s inner fringe are being monitored in a bid to find land that could be reused to build much-needed affordable housing.

Sydney’s Inner West Council is set to convert four of its car parks into 200 affordable homes for essential workers, more than double the existing affordable stock.

The central west has just 94 affordable homes, according to the Community Housing Association NSW.

The council will consider three pre-selected parking sites at its meeting on Monday evening.

Under the plan, three car parks in Dulwich Hill, Leichhardt, Marrickville, Petersham or Rozelle would be transformed into 200 affordable homes, as well as the council’s Hay Street car park in Leichhardt.

Inner West Council Mayor Darcy Bryne said the council was finding essential service workers like teachers, police and paramedics could not afford to live in the Inner West.

“We believe that by using our public goods, in this case car parks and depots, to transform them into a different public good, housing, to tackle the crisis, we can make a real difference. how councils in New South Wales can deliver real solutions to the housing crisis,” he said.

The council would retain ownership of the land and the homes would be built and managed by a community housing provider.

Mixed Community Response on Affordable Housing vs. Parking Lots

Councilor Byrne said the aim was to replace the parking that would be lost, but how this was achieved would depend on the development assessment process.

“The feedback we are receiving from the community is that they want the council to take every step possible to resolve the housing crisis because families are being divided and young people are being forced to leave, which means we are losing what There is better in the community. the inner west.”

Central West local Jamie Comer believed more affordable housing was needed in the area.

“I mean, you have to make things a little more dense. It’s just the way the future is unfolding, building, and I hope they replace the parking lot in some way ” he said.

Nick Easdown was strongly in favor of more affordable housing.

Gay Williams said affordable housing “has to be a good thing”.

“But it depends on the location, because if the parking lots are in a place that looks like a shopping center, then no,” she said.

Essential workers pushed to outer Sydney suburbs

The Inner West Council defines essential workers eligible for their affordable housing as workers in healthcare, childcare, education, emergency services such as police and ambulances, transport, retail, labor, manufacturing and hospitality.

They must earn less than $61,322 or up to $145,811, depending on household composition.

Research by the University of Sydney on 2021 census data showed more than 52,000 essential workers were experiencing housing-related stress.

Catherine Gilbert, a lecturer in urban planning at the University of Sydney who carried out the analysis, said essential workers were being pushed out to the metropolitan fringe and beyond, to the Illawarra and the Central Coast.

“There is now virtually no place in the metro area where, say, an early-career nurse could afford to rent even a one-bedroom unit, and there is nowhere where even a mid-career registered nurse could afford to purchase a unit titled stratum,” she says.

The analysis showed only 13 of Greater Sydney’s 33 local government areas were affordable for a registered nurse to rent a two-bedroom apartment at the median rent.

For registered nurses looking to purchase an apartment at the median price, no neighborhood was affordable.

Ms Gilbert said for professions such as policing and teaching it was essential to integrate into their community.

“This is particularly the case in essential services where workers need to be on call, so they need to live close to work, so they can respond to emergency situations and peaks in demand for services.”

“Years and years” to provide affordable housing

Using public land removes one of the biggest barriers to building affordable housing: the cost of land.

Inner West Council announced in 2015 that it would transform its Hay Street car park in Leichhardt into affordable housing, but the first brick has yet to be laid.

A council spokesperson said it did not have the capacity, expertise or funds to build the development on its own.

It has an agreement with community housing provider Link Wentworth to develop the site for affordable housing.

Nicole Woodrow, head of growth and innovation at Link Wentworth, said working with councils to build affordable housing was complex.

Tax issues, local planning, nimbyism and labor shortages all contributed to the delays, she said.

“You can’t just go in and do something in a year. You know, it takes years to do, to get approvals, it takes years to actually build things. It’s years and years,” she declared.

Affordable housing funding is available from the NSW Government’s Social and Affordable Housing Fund, and Ms Woodrow said the Federal Government’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund had opened up another source of funding .

Ms Woodrow is excited about Inner West Council’s plan to use its car parks for affordable housing.