The City of Logan is close to meeting its ambitious housing targets despite thousands of developments stuck in construction limbo.
Meanwhile, thousands of residents across the city face homelessness, with “tent cities” and homeless numbers rising.
Last year the Queensland government set Logan a goal to build 110,000 homes by 2046 – between 4500 to 5000 homes a year – to support an additional 311,000 people predicted to live in the city.
Logan currently has around 126,000 homes.
At the time, mayor Darren Power said Logan City Council would aim to meet the target but called for more funding from the government to support the development of essential infrastructure.
Now, a Logan City Council spokesperson said council was “one of the only local governments to meet the housing targets” set out by the state government.
“Between 3500 and 4000 homes are built in the City of Logan each year,” the spokesperson said.
To accurately hit its target, around 1000 more homes would need to be built in Logan.
But the city’s planning chair, councillor Jon Raven, said thousands of developments were approved and waiting for construction to start.
“There are 60,000 approved lots in South East Queensland waiting to be built,” Cr Raven said.
“Local government is doing its bit.
“The construction industry needs to start building, but in the current market they don’t have the capacity to do so.”
Despite thousands of new homes hitting the market every year, the City of Logan has the highest rate of homelessness in the region with 1,687 people homeless (0.49 per cent of the population), according to the 2021 census.
And according to a new council report, the number has “significantly increased” in the past two years.
The report quotes data from Logan-based financial services charity YFS, which has received over 2000 requests in the first quarter of this financial year from people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
In the 2022-2023 financial year, YFS received 6500 requests.
The Logan Zero campaign, an initiative aiming to eradicate homelessness in Logan, discovered 687 households sleeping in tents, cars and other improvised homes between December 2021 and 31 August 2023.
The report stated council’s park rangers identified “approximately 60 homeless persons staying overnight in council’s parks (in tents and cars) daily”.
It attributes the recent increase in homelessness to the rising cost-of-living, “extremely limited” rental vacancy, unaffordable rent, and pressures on the social housing system.
The report recommended council creates policy to provide “clarity about council’s role in responding to homelessness” despite homelessness falling under state government responsibility.
Council voted in favour of the recommendation.
“I acknowledge that Logan City is doing the best it can development wise – we have been the only local authority that has stuck to all its targets,” Cr Power said.
“Our situation isn’t as bad as it is in other local authorities, but the situation is going to get worse.
“We [council] don’t have the finances to tackle the issue, we can only do our job, which is the development of our city.
