Re: Public Housing for Whitten Oval
Originally Posted by
Lantern
Not necessarily. Firstly, they are rent-earning properties. The Victorian public housing rental model work on a means-tested basis (which is open to fraud, of course, but that's another issue), so that people pay what they can afford and there is a price-point pressure to move people out as they start earning higher wages (to allow lower-income earners in). If you are earning decent wages but don't want to move, the rent will be prohibitive.
Secondly, well-designed public housing properties (and I can give you several very good examples right here in Melbourne) are equity-hogs -- because they are cheap to build (in general), well-designed units in great -- often inner-city -- locations means that they are rarely over-capitalised and have great resale value. This does not apply to the old model of public housing ie. the huge granite blocks of the 50s - 70s, but to the very attractive and innovative medium-density models of recent times, which as far as I know, the Whitten Oval proposal is predicated on.
Thanks for the insight Lantern - are there any topics you're not knowledgable of? I think you'd be a killer at Trivial Pursuit (not that your insights are trivial, just that they're quite broad in scope!)
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