The Urban Land Development Authority has been set up by the State Government of Queensland to address issues of housing affordability, differences in Council planning schemes, the time factor in preparing Development Applications and having them approved and provision of infrastructure and the costs associated with it.
I have previously posted about this ULDA and what I believe it is and its intended purpose in the future and recent changes to give the ULDA more powers seem to give weight to the fact that after public land stock diminishes, the Authority will begin to look for private land.
What is a problem here is that there is no higher body looking on to the activities of the ULDA, no right of appeal to their decisions and the ULDA and Developers they nominate with have the power to write their own by-laws, open and close roads, levy their own rates and even enter buildings without a warrant ; and noone has the right to say no to any of it.
I have looked into some of the latest project home areas and I am at a loss to believe that they do actually constitute affordable housing, with basic homes calling for repayments of over $500 a week and typical family homes going from mid Three hundre to over Five hundred Thousand Dollars on minimum size allotments.
The additional power to levy rates gives the UDLA the opportunity to make new residents "pay off" infrastructure provision perhaps over 20 years, making the claim that it will reduce upfront costs.
In an era where we are seeing caravan park style "over 50's" accomidation becoming popular with pricess well over 200 thousand dollars on strata title, it seems incredible that there is an absurd notion that house and land packages can be affordable just by making it all happen quicker.
This is definately one to watch!
