This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
EG is leading the way for institutional players to support community housing, by teaming up with provider Southern Cross Community Housing to deliver a $150 million flagship social and affordable housing precinct, as the private sector answers the call to action.
Located at 25 Moss Vale Road, in the regional NSW town of Bomaderry, the 8.2-hectare site will house 350 dwellings, with amenities built around a town centre, including a medical centre, childcare, community, retail and hospitality operators, in addition to a number of social enterprise businesses.
The flagship project will see an extensive range of housing options offered, including social, affordable, private and key worker housing, independent living for aged care, specialist disability accommodation and built-to-rent (BTR) stock.
The development will inject much needed housing stock into the Shoalhaven area where Southern Cross Housing was founded in 1983, with the district sitting around 200km south of Sydney.
Michael Easson, founding director and executive chairman of EG, said the group was entering the not for profit community housing space to make a difference in the outcomes for built form and precinct development quality and quantity.
“It’s a great joy to venture on that journey with Southern Cross Housing, a partner who shares our drive to make a difference through innovation,” added Easson.
“This project is much more than affordable housing, it will be an integrated neighbourhood promoting community cohesion built on ESG principles,” said Alex Pontello, CEO of Southern Cross Housing.
“This precinct will include social enterprise businesses which will provide affordable goods and services to local residents in an area that has been gripped by a dire housing crisis for more than a decade.”
Within the partnership, EG will act as fund manager and property developer across all stages of the project.
“Our partnership with EG gives us insight into master planned-community building. It is also an opportunity to maximise everything that this site has to offer and increase the availability of affordable housing for key workers and young families,” said Pontello.
“This includes the flexibility to reconfigure our extensive existing local portfolio so we can be confident our customers’ needs are being met with those most appropriate housing solutions.”
Recently former Stockland CEO Mark Steinert warned that if nothing changes, more than 2 million Australian households on low incomes in private rentals will be in housing stress by 2051.
Steinert said the health, education, productivity and crime costs borne by the community as a result of this unmet housing need is estimated to reach $25 billion per year.
He encouraged the private sector capital markets to be involved with creating this new asset class, adding that the benefits of creating affordable housing outweigh the costs.
Housing For All Australians (HAA) report, Give Me Shelter, found that the national average benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for Australia in providing adequate social and affordable housing infrastructure is 2:1. In other words, for every $1 invested to drive the delivery of public, social and affordable housing, the Australian community saves $2 in future costs.
HAA, whose supporters include Frasers Property, CBUS Property, ISPT, Australian Institute of Architects and Stockland, is a business-led initiative dedicated to helping address Australia’s chronic shortage of low-income affordable housing.
“This rate of return is comparable to, or better than, those achieved in many other major investments in infrastructure including Melbourne Metro (1.5:1) and the M12 Motorway Sydney. There is a strong underlying business case to mitigate the inevitable long-term taxpayer costs by investing to create more public, social and affordable housing supply.
“One solution is to engage with government, at all levels, and private sector capital markets (which includes our superfunds) and encourage their involvement in creating a new residential asset class.” Steinert said.
