Federal Government Continuing to Buy Commission Flat Sites

THE federal and state governments are continuing to buy development sites and vacant properties that it can convert into public housing.

It has recently acquired two prominent properties in the seaside hamlet of Wonthaggi, about 132 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.

In the highest profile deal, the government outmuscled developers and operators for the former Golf Links Hotel, which is set to be redeveloped into a major rooming house.

At another site at 7 Mortimer Street, near the Wonthaggi town centre, a vacant block offering picturesque views over the Wonthaggi Golf Course and Bass Strait is also set to make way for a new commission flat complex.

A Bass Coast council spokeswoman said the government does not need a planning permit to redevelop the Mortimer Street site.

The proposal is part of the Rudd-Gillard government’s Commonwealth’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, and therefore exempt from the usual application channels that would give the community a chance to effectively object.

It is becoming increasingly common since 2008 that new privately marketed residential projects all around the state include a portion of dwellings, managed by the government or its agencies as commission flats.