JEMIMA WILLIAMSON-WONG is a Fremantle residents and online facilitator for Melbourne-based not-for-profit Climate for Change
HOUSING in Fremantle is becoming a hot topic.
From student housing emerging as a central theme of a past Politics in the Pub, to consistent conversations about the rental crisis; the stories of people forced out of Fremantle are everywhere.
There are the customers who I made coffee for every day before their rent was increased too high, or the friend who has to commute in to university from Darlington every day.
I grew up in Freo, and feel incredibly lucky to live in this little pocket of paradise.
Living
To be able to walk to the beach and grab a coffee on the way, cycle into town for work, and head to Fremantle Art’s Centre for Sunday Music.
It’s the life I would love to continue living, but it ultimately depends on the affordability, and amount, of housing.
Without affordable housing I too will be forced out of Fremantle.
As housing costs continue to rise our city is slowly forcing people out, creating a lack of diversity within our community.
In 2021, almost 30 per cent of Fremantle renters were experiencing rental stress; spending more than 30 per cent of their household income on rent.
In 2011, only 12.4 per cent of households were under this stress.
The City has been a leader in housing affordability in the past, implementing policies to reduce housing stress.
Policies such as amending the planning frameworks to allow small granny-flat style dwellings to be built more easily, introducing density bonuses, and creating a mandatory minimum affordable homes in new developments.
These changes have made great impacts, but the problem that we now face requires bigger innovate thinking.
In Broome, where there are extreme housing-shortages, the shire has begun works on the Sanctuary Road development.
Without waiting for a developer, the shire is directly providing solutions for their community.
There are many policies that may be leveraged in response to the current crisis.
These include increasing the mandatory inclusionary zoning, changing rates for certain properties, and including planning requirements that specify new developments include certain quotas of properties that are affordable-to-rent builds.
There are also, no doubt, many other innovative strategies that the far more experienced policymakers would be across!
It is possible for new developments to be about more than just maximising density.
Instead, buildings such as the Nightingale project in Fremantle and the My Home project in North Fremantle demonstrate that developments can be about carefully constructing spaces that foster community.
It will be important that the council values the need for character and function in new developments.
Council has the opportunity to ensure that the values of the Freo we love are included in the quality and design of new projects.
Arrival
Freo has long been a place of arrival for many people, a community where creativity is incubated; characteristics woven into our social fabric and that rely on affordable housing.
The council’s approach to the housing crisis that Fremantle currently faces will ultimately decide the direction of our city.
For a creative and vibrant city, Fremantle must ensure that a diverse group of people can live in the city – and that means working together on a housing solution is central.