Forrest

Thank you for making such an effort. The accusations of posters like Mr Right deserve to be exposed for the rubbish that they are, and your efforts have done this. But more importantly they show the economic damage wrought by high housing costs, which can suck the capital out of a community more efficiently than any casino. It is fortunate that the cost of consumables has fallen so greatly with the progress of technology. Housing has only been different for the reasons you outlined.

An interesting radio program today where the guest speaker spoke out against the excessive regulation of housing. I would comment that it would be easier just to increase the urban density.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2213115.htm

Thank you for the recognition of the effort, Fester.

I'm inclined to agree with you that it would be easier to just increase the urban density. That, after all, is what your idea of adapted shipping containers in front yards amounts to. The urban areas are where most of the existing employment opportunities are presently located, as well as the utilities and transport infra-structure, let alone such social support structure as may exist, for people like B_D's hypothetical couple.

However, I think it has to be recognised that the relatively constricted living space likely to be provided in adapted shipping containers in suburban front (or for that matter, back) yards is something that those who have to occupy it would like to move on from as soon as finances and other circumstances may permit.

Given that most of those suburban containers are essentially rental accommodation, the widespread adoption of this option would enable prospective occupants to rent/live closer to their work in many cases, rather than necessarily in the *shudder* outer burbs. The availability of vacant land to build upon, or the capacity to buy a house, with this option available is no longer so much an issue as it is presently. Still, you would like to think there was a better, more spacious, future for you if you had to conform your lifestyle to the constraints of containerdom. And it might just be possible for some.

The 'beauty' of the adapted container is that it is transportable: the inventiveness, effort and money that have gone into making it livable belong, in this scenario, to its occupants. If they can find a more spacious site within reach of employment, they can transport their existing livable accommodation to that site, occupy it with minimal delay, and modularly and inventively extend their living space with additional container(s) as money and time permit.

The problem/challenge now is as to how they can obtain secure tenure of ground space, at ground-space only rental rates, for the foreseeable future.

Company, teamwork, and legal smarts are the answers.

continued from above.

I have said enough. I have given all necessary clues to anyone really interested in an at least partial solution to the housing affordability problem.

Suffice it to say that I can see how, based on B_D's assumptions as to incomes, living costs (with some increases), land values, and current taxation and interest rates, this hypothetical couple could be, within four years of starting out, living in around 14 squares of habitable living space on a near-city 2Ha+ rural residential property which, within 10 years of starting out they could effectively own outright.

There has been no role in this suggested (partial) solution for banks as we have come to know them in Australia. This is not to suggest that they could not be of some use in achieving the outcome, simply that they are not essential to that end. I guess that implies that this partial solution to housing affordability will tend to make home-loan borrowing more of a buyers market. My heart bleeds.

There has been no role for government in this scenario, other than that of staying out of the way. To be completely honest, however, 'staying out of the way' will require of government, particularly local government, the total abandonment of the position that 'the whinger must receive satisfaction'. Given that the whole basis of the supposed popularity of planning legislation and the governments that have introduced it rests upon the appeal of the spurious 'rights' of the whinger class to controls over OTHER peoples' land and activities, this is probably a pretty big ask. But I just thought I'd put the spotlight on the real villain, and show the cost that that villain is inflicting on Australian society.

The really sad aspect of all this is that this governmental obstructionism is most likely not supported by a genuine majority of electors at any level.

Should it prove possible to decentralize employment opportunities in Australia from the major metropolitan centres, the transportability of adapted container accommodation can only facilitate the movement of people to match those opportunities.

Interesting article:
http://www.domain.com.au/Public/Article.aspx?id=1194766730150&index=NationalIndex&headline=How%20other%20countries%20deal%20with%20the%20housing%20dilemma

A quote:
In Australia, investment in housing — helped by the tax incentives — is dominated by a small landlord class that is largely unique to this country, and the side effect is the absence of large institutional investors in rental housing. Bigger investors could provide stability of ownership, targeted projects and allow longer-term tenure.

Another quote:
Countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have up to 40 per cent of their housing stock held in a combination of public and private models. The Dutch and Swedish approaches do not favour ownership over renting, says Burke. "They have a tenure-neutral policy, which is to provide assistance to any tenure that fits their lifestyle, whereas we have been obsessed with home ownership as the one appropriate tenure."

Even tenancy advocates admit that the mood is not right here for a European-style model, yet declining levels of affordability are forcing people into renting for much longer than previous generations.

"We are going to have a lot more Australians living in private rental," says Burke.

"So we are going to have to have a lot more policy shaping for the rental sector."

Vanilla,

I have been feeling a bit guilty for not having thanked you for the links given in your third post in this thread. I always feel a discussion is more likely to be illuminating if relevant links are posted by someone.

The second link in that third post proved particularly illuminating. It is quite a long article, but one sentence in it fairly jumped out and grabbed my attention:

"The cause of poverty is the private monopolisation of land and resources."

If there is one thing that land use planning and regulation across Australia has done in recent decades, it is to monopolise, in the hands of government, land and resources. Upon this monopoly has been built an enormous, costly, inefficient and stultifying bureaucracy that is 'padrone' to featherbedded, privileged, but ultimately dependent satellite 'businesses'. Behold the mechanism of your impoverishment!

I don't claim to have digested anything like all of the content of this link, but it certainly provides some fascinating insights: the reference, for example, to the work "An Irish Commonwealth" published in the first decade of the last century, the very decade that saw the emergence of the Commonwealth of Australia as a superimposition upon already quite adequately functioning self-governing States, a Commonwealth that was only going to cost 5/- (five shillings, five bob, a dollar, 1900 values) per year. Another, to the founding, in 1943, at the height of a war in which Australia's very survival was earlier at stake, of the Land Value Research Group: now THAT was focus upon the long term! Good stuff, Vanilla.

Your fourth post I have linked to from this thread in the technical support area of the Forum: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1684 . Cross promotion. This thread contains a proposal, that if adopted, might threaten the ability of posters to quite so freely post links as you have. I don't think it has much likelihood of being supported, but its interesting to see how some seem threatened by this feature of OLO. Embedded links in that post were helpful, too.

Forrest

You might like this link showcasing some of the architectural possibilities of shipping containers:

http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/containerbayhome.htm

But whatever people wish to do with their land, the problem is a lack of rights, not a lack of will.