A summit on the housing crisis engulfing the Greater Whitsundays has hit a snag with one infuriated Mackay councillor slamming the lack of urgency as ‘beyond a joke’.
Outspoken Mackay councillor Martin Bella is incensed by the region’s rising homelessness and said the summit delay was “beyond a joke”.
“It is just not good enough,” he said.
“Ultimately there is no urgency whatsoever from people who have the power to make decisions.”
Mackay’s rental vacancy rate is consistently below one per cent and shortages in housing and emergency accommodation are also squeezing the Whitsunday and Isaac regions.
The summit, led by the Greater Whitsundays Housing Project and originally scheduled for June 6, was set to be backed by a $100,000 study from consultant firm Urbis offering tangible solutions to the region’s deep-rooted mismatch between housing supply and demand.
Councillor Martin Bella says not enough is being done to address the region’s housing crisis. Picture: Duncan Evans
But the project’s leaders, including Greater Whitsundays RDA CEO Robert Cocco and Greater Whitsunday Communities project manager Tonia Wilson, said more detail was needed with Urbis sent back to collect more data.
“If we don’t have quality data, we won’t have a quality outcome,” Ms Wilson said.
The summit will now take place on August 15.
Mr Cocco stressed the delay would result in a better long-term outcome.
“What we don’t want is this summit just being quite frankly a talk-fest,” he said.
“We want it to be something that has a meaningful exchange of data and information for the 150-odd people who are going to be there.
“It will allow them to be better informed of the issues and what are some of the coherent solutions to some of this.”
Mackay’s rental vacancy rate is consistently below one per cent and shortages in housing and emergency accommodation are also squeezing the Whitsunday and Isaac regions. Picture: Rae Wilson
Mr Cocco noted the August summit would follow the state government’s June budget, which he argued could give stakeholders a clearer sense of the government’s approach to the problem.
Before the summit and study, the project produced a roundtable report compiled from leading figures across the Mackay, Whitsunday and Isaac housing sectors on some low-hanging fruit, or “quick wins”, that could begin to ease the stress.
Converting containers into houses, turning existing and under-utilised buildings into residential accommodation, deploying storage facilities as homeless shelters, mapping under-utilised housing assets, building demountables on available government land and determining how many homes were vacant across all three LGAs were some of the ideas floated to move the region onto a more stable footing.
The cost of the roundtable report, Urbis study and summit is pegged at $135,000.
Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon in Mackay on June 2, 2023. Picture: Heidi Petith
Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon, in the region to inspect new social housing in Cannonvale and Slade Point, said the crisis could only be resolved by all levels of government working collaboratively.
“I don’t accept it is only the state government’s responsibility, everyone has a role to play in unlocking supply and finding solutions, particularly around affordable housing,” she said.
She said local councils had a central role to play in generating more supply, though she did not specify what policies she hoped councils would pursue to do this.
She said her government would begin building almost 100 new social homes in the region by mid-2025.
Ms Scanlon also said she was eager to connect with the Greater Whitsundays Housing Project summit.
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