Urgent need for housing
Jobs boom boosts population
COUNCILS, state government and industry will need an open mind to provide urgent solutions to ensure new families to the region are housed, Knight Frank senior partner Craig Stack says.
Mr Stack said the risk averse nature which had developed would need to be relaxed.
“Councils, home builders and the development industry need to come together urgently to determine how the most affordable, relevant options for new housing can be created,” Mr Stack said.
“Attracting new employees and their families to the region will be made more difficult if housing options cannot be created.”
Mr Stack said the strongest employment demand across North Queensland in more than a decade would continue to attract new employees and their families to the region.
He said the most critical surge in demand would occur through next year when both new construction workforce demand coincided with operating workforce demand.
“Because housing occupancy demand was weaker in the 10 years to 2020, far fewer new houses were constructed than in previous decades and very few new units were constructed,” Mr Stack said.
“Housing vacancy rates across Queensland are now below 1 per cent but few other regions have the same employment demand as North Queensland.
“There are less than 320 houses and units presently becoming available for rent in Townsville, yet a count of new jobs currently needing to be filled or coming on line over the next 12 months is greater than 2000.”
Mr Stack said examples of new operational employment demand were the Ravenswood Gold (100 jobs), Antill Copper (70) and Bravus Mckellar mining operations (280). Construction jobs included the Genex Kidston hydro project (600) and the Australia Singapore defence initiative at Greenvale (300 plus).