The Victorian Greens have slammed Labor's plans to completely wipe out public housing at 139 Highett Street in Richmond, describing this news as another carve-up of public land for private property developers.
The plan for 139 Highett Street is the latest of Labor's secretive privatisation plans to be revealed, as part of Labor's ongoing demolition of all of Melbourne's public housing towers.
Labor is knocking down 220 public homes and handing over the site to private property developers to be dominated by hundreds of private apartments, including taxpayer subsidised build-to-rent, while not a single public home will remain at the site.
Under Labor's proposal, the site is expected to contain 800 private apartments - including around 650 build-to-rent homes and a measly 150 community housing units.
That means not a single public home will remain, and there will be around 70 fewer "social housing" units overall on the site than before.
Public housing is owned and managed by the state with rent capped at 25 per cent of household income and secure ongoing tenancies.
Community housing is managed by community housing providers, with different rent settings, often above 30%, additional utility and service charges, and varying tenancy arrangements.
Social housing is an umbrella term which includes both public and community housing.
Build-to-rent developments are operated by a single corporate landlord and typically attract rents 20-70% higher than market rent. Developers of build-to-rent receive land tax and absentee owner surcharge subsidies as well as avoid developer contributions for local infrastructure.
Labor have tried to defend their demolition and privatisation of Melbourne's public housing towers by pointing to this measly target of 10 per cent more "social housing".
The Greens say Labor has even failed to deliver on their pathetically inadequate target and that we should be building more government owned and managed public housing, not knocking it down while over 100,000 Victorians languish on the public housing waitlist.
As stated by the Victorian Greens MP for Richmond and housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri:
"Labor is wiping out public housing, handing valuable land over to private developers, literally subsidising corporate landlords to profit off that land, and somehow delivering even less "social housing" than before. Labor is clearly trying to hoodwink Victorians with this plan that's been nothing more than a mass privatisation sham from day one.
"Only last week, the United Nations raised serious concerns that Labor's demolition plan could breach international human rights law and make the housing crisis worse, while a parliamentary inquiry found the government had failed to justify demolition over refurbishment.
"As the local MP I cannot stand by while Labor tears our community apart. I will fight this tooth and nail.
"The Greens would double the number of public homes in Victoria and refurbish the homes we already have - not bulldoze them and hand public land to private developers."
