CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australia’s catastrophic housing and rental crisis has officially rendered Australia’s three largest cities completely unaffordable to the average single-income family, and barely affordable for those with two working incomes.
With every inch of the city accounted for – as either overvalued land-banking assets or vacant lots earmarked for the unregulated development of equally unaffordable high rise units – supply would have to be ramped up to Hong Kong-levels of density to cool down Australia’s hysterical property-industrial complex.
And it’s not just the quarter acre block that has been made extinct by this far-from-noble pursuit of mindless property speculation. Gone are the days of generational beachside communities, or empty squats for the scene’s burgeoning musicians and artists. Goodbye to the notion of having both rough mates and posh mates. Goodbye to the Darryl Kerrigans and their Castles. Goodbye to the community.
As of 2024, the once economically diverse and exciting ‘hometowns’ are nothing more than a memory. In it’s place sits a grid of heavily mortgaged parcels of land, carved off like Latin American countries and packaged up with promises of prosperity and eternal wealth.
While developers argue that supply is being stalled by the ‘bureaucratic red tape’ that prevents them from building cracking apartment towers in flood plains, others might argue that developers aren’t interested in building any sort of dwellings that can’t be rattled off for over a million bucks with one lick of paint and paper-thin walls.
However, there is one way to solve this nihilistic dystopia of boomer wealth-hoarding.
And as usual, the answers to the nation”s most pressing political problem can only come from Queensland.
Brisbane-based property expert, Hutchie Icon (55) says the housing crisis could be solved overnight if Australian developers didn’t think they were above the glorious 1970s era blonde brick unit blocks.
“They’ve withstood the test of time” he says.
“Put one on every corner block, in every suburb”
Hutchie says, for every acre of approved land, a Queensland builder can squeeze out seventeen 3 bedders.
“Everyone gets a car port” he adds
“Let’s not try and reinvent the wheel here. Fuck off the pools and gyms. Build the thing next to a bus stop and walking distance from an IGA. Ground floors for wheelchairs and prams, top floors for young people who wanna smoke joints out the window”
“Forty square metres of lawn out the front for the kids to practice being Reece Walsh”
“What are we fucking doing here. Why in the fuck does anyone need a sauna. Let’s focus on the kitchen sink first”
