Executive Summary
- Council’s leadership role is to provide the handrails that enable community-led, perpetual affordability models to succeed.
- Community Land Trusts (CLTs) can deliver long-term affordability without ongoing subsidy, addressing the collapse in affordable rentals.
- CLTs protect farmland and improve land-use efficiency, delivering the same number of affordable homes on a fraction of the land required by typical master-planned communities.
- A scarcity radar is needed to monitor the drip-feeding of land to market, with local infrastructure funding tied to fair and transparent supply outcomes.
- Council can now regulate short-stay accommodation under current legislation. A licensing system should be introduced as a step toward a cap-and-trade framework for Airbnb-type uses.
- Rural exclusion provisions should be reformed to allow locally governed, community-benefit housing on appropriate land.
- Council should adopt an Affordable Housing Impact Statement process to assess the genuine contribution of all major developments to long-term affordability.
Introduction
Grounded welcomes the opportunity to contribute to Macedon Ranges Shire Council’s Affordable Housing Policy. The fall in affordable rental supply from 17% to 5.5% in less than a decade highlights a structural affordability failure, not a temporary imbalance. Traditional supply responses have often reinforced scarcity and inflated land values.
To reverse this trend, the Shire must support structural reform — new governance and tenure models that deliver affordability by design, not by subsidy. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are the most effective mechanism for locking affordability in perpetuity and allowing communities to retain control over their housing futures.
Community Land Trusts as a Policy Tool
A Community Land Trust (CLT) separates land ownership from housing ownership. The land is held permanently in trust for community benefit, while residents own or lease their homes under covenants tied to income-based affordability metrics.
CLTs:
- Guarantee perpetual affordability through resale and rent restrictions;
- Establish tripartite governance—residents, community representatives, and public-interest directors share oversight;
- Enable efficient land use, achieving higher affordability yields on smaller footprints.
Findings from Grounded in Affordability (2024)
The Grounded in Affordability report demonstrates that CLTs can deliver affordability outcomes 40% below market-rate models, recycle public subsidy through resale covenants, and achieve the same housing yield on 90% less land than a typical master-planned community. CLTs permanently de-link house prices from speculative land markets, creating a self-sustaining affordability cycle that strengthens over time.
Recognising CLTs in local planning policy would allow Council to secure lasting affordability outcomes without ongoing subsidy, advancing the policy objective to increase and improve the quality and supply of affordable housing.
Protecting Farmland and Improving Land-Use Efficiency
Macedon Ranges’ agricultural land and rural character are irreplaceable public assets. Yet the typical master-planned community model consumes large tracts of land, stages delivery over many years, and concentrates development in high-value areas with limited community return.
Grounded’s Regenerative Housing Pathways framework shows that CLTs can achieve equivalent housing outcomes on a fraction of the land footprint by prioritising quality supply—developments designed for community need, not speculative release.
A scarcity radar should be introduced to track lot release rates and identify when large developers are drip-feeding supply. Infrastructure funding and rezoning approvals should be tied to transparent delivery benchmarks verified by this monitoring system. Linking infrastructure contributions to genuine lot delivery would ensure that land release supports affordability rather than constraining it. Improved transparency would empower planners to uphold policy intent with clear, verifiable data, creating a more balanced dialogue between public officers and major developers.
Regulating Short-Stay Accommodation
Short-stay accommodation continues to remove long-term rental stock from the market, worsening affordability across regional centres and towns. With new state legislation enabling local regulation, Macedon Ranges can lead on this issue by introducing:
- A licensing system for all short-stay dwellings, including Airbnb-style uses;
- Mandatory registration, fee payment, and compliance with amenity and safety standards;
- Publication of short-stay data to inform housing policy; and
- Development of a cap-and-trade system over time, limiting the number of short-stay dwellings in each township.
Revenue from licensing could be reinvested in affordable housing projects, including CLTs, ensuring that the tourism economy supports rather than undermines community housing supply. Read Grounded’s Airbnb: from a Housing Problem to Solution Report for more.
Addressing Rural Exclusion and Land Market Concentration
Across the Shire, access to land and housing is constrained by both regulation and market concentration. In smaller towns, a single landholder or developer often controls most developable land, giving rise to a monopoly-like dynamic that inflates prices beyond local incomes.
Grounded’s Rural Exclusion Framework highlights how community-led exception sites could rebalance this market power. By allowing small-scale CLT or key-worker housing on suitable rural land – subject to infrastructure and environmental assessment – Council can enable affordability without undermining the rural zone’s integrity.
This approach would align directly with Council’s commitment to “support policy and statutory change to increase and improve the quality and supply of affordable housing.”
Land Activation and Ethical Partnership Pathways
Addressing affordability is not only a question of planning permissions but also of access to land. Council can play a pivotal enabling role by identifying and activating underutilised public or privately held land for community-benefit housing. A systematic review of surplus or underused council-owned parcels should be undertaken to determine which sites could be leased, transferred, or jointly developed for affordable and key-worker housing.
Alongside this, Council could establish a Land Donation Register — a formal mechanism for ethical landholders, farmers, and faith or philanthropic groups to nominate land for community housing projects. This “holding space” would create a ready pipeline of well-located, serviced sites that community housing providers or CLTs can bring forward as demonstration projects.
Council’s role is not to develop or hold housing stock, but to facilitate tenure transition, provide planning certainty, and coordinate servicing agreements that make such projects viable. This approach aligns with Council’s strategic objectives to “increase the supply of affordable homes” and “support policy and statutory change,” while also demonstrating how communities can look after themselves when given the right tools.
Council’s Role: Providing the Handrails
Communities are ready to lead the way in creating housing that meets their own needs. What they require are the handrails—clear frameworks, transparent policy settings, and supportive regulation that allow community initiatives to proceed safely and lawfully.
Grounded proposes that Council adopt the following enabling tools:
Affordable Housing Impact Statement (AHIS):
Each significant planning application should include an AHIS assessing:
- Alignment of sale and rental prices with local median incomes;
- The proportion of homes meeting the 30% income benchmark for affordability;
- Any long-term affordability or stewardship mechanisms proposed; and
- Contribution to local housing diversity, not just unit count.
This approach parallels an Environmental Impact Statement, embedding affordability analysis into statutory planning decisions and creating a transparent, measurable link between development and community outcomes.
Shared Equity 2.0 Framework:
Grounded’s Shared Equity 2.0 model demonstrates how recycled public subsidy and performance-based finance can scale affordable housing supply. Council could use this model to attract ethical investors or super funds to local CLT projects—tying finance to community outcomes rather than short-term profit.
Planning Handrails:
Council can provide practical support by:
- Recognising CLTs as legitimate affordable housing partners in the Local Planning Policy Framework;
- Establishing facilitation pathways for community-controlled housing on underutilised or surplus land;
- Linking infrastructure contributions and rezonings to demonstrated delivery through the scarcity radar;
- Prioritising developments benchmarked to local incomes; and
- Ensuring that perpetual affordability mechanisms are treated equitably within planning controls.
Planning and Policy Recommendations
- Planning Scheme Amendment: Recognise CLTs as an approved mechanism for perpetual affordability in the MSS and Local Policy Framework, ensuring they are considered a legitimate delivery pathway under planning law.
- Scarcity Radar: Implement a land-supply monitoring tool to track release patterns, linking infrastructure funding to verified delivery outcomes.
- Short-Stay Accommodation Licensing: Introduce a licensing regime and establish a pathway toward a cap-and-trade model for Airbnb-style properties.
- Affordable Housing Impact Statement: Require all major developments to include an AHIS demonstrating genuine affordability contributions.
- Rural Exemption Sites: Pilot community-led developments on appropriate rural land to diversify supply and enable local stewardship.
- Council and Ethical Landholder Land Activation: Identify surplus council land and create a register for ethical landholders willing to contribute sites for community-benefit housing. Council’s role is to facilitate tenure transition and provide planning and servicing certainty.
- Perpetual Affordability Requirement: Embed resale and rental covenants to ensure affordability retention in any council land sold.
- Use-It-or-Lose-It Permissions: Apply sunset provisions to prevent speculative land banking and idle permits.
Conclusion
The decline in affordable rentals across Macedon Ranges reflects a system that privileges short-term profit over long-term community need. Council’s Affordable Housing Policy provides the opportunity to reverse this trend through governance innovation rather than expansion alone.
By adopting CLTs, scarcity monitoring, short-stay regulation, and impact-based assessment tools, Council can empower residents to co-produce housing that remains affordable in perpetuity. With the right handrails in place, Macedon Ranges can lead the state in demonstrating how rural communities can protect farmland, strengthen local economies, and secure affordability for generations to come.
Photo by Gagandeep Singh on Unsplash