Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) welcomes the finalisation of the Build to Rent regulations which outline the requirements for a Build to Rent (BTR) development to be eligible for tax concessions.
“This initiative will be important to unlocking the at-scale housing supply Australia needs to combat our affordability crisis and gives Build to Rent a chance to be a viable solution for our housing supply crisis,” said Col Dutton, UDIA National President.
The amendments to the BTR Legislation provide the necessary information to implement key elements of the legislation and include specific details of the requirements for a dwelling in a BTR development to be an affordable dwelling.
The following changes announced have been approved in a direct response to advocacy by UDIA designed to make it easier to invest in and build more BTR product around the nation:
• the dwelling must be either a moderate-income dwelling or a lower-income dwelling;
• the number of lower-income dwellings in a BTR development must be equal to or greater than two percent of the number of dwellings in the BTR development (rounded down to the nearest whole number);
• the owner of the BTR development (BTR owner) must have engaged an eligible community housing provider (CHP).
The growing shortage of affordable/social housing, and spiralling housing affordability, are the consequence of the same problems, shortages of development-ready land, materials, and skilled labour, planning delays, development charges/taxes and increasing complexity – driving up the cost and the price of new dwellings.
“There is more hard work needed to ensure Build to Rent contributes meaningfully toward housing affordability but it is a great start, and UDIA welcomes this much needed step,” said Col Dutton.
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Media Enquiries:
Deanna Lane | Director, National Media & Communications | 0416 295 898 | media@udia.com.au