Housing woes

In the early 1950s, looming population growth surely signalled housing needs for post-war families and immigrants, most of whom went on to live much longer than their forebears.

Generations of population growth and such longevity naturally followed. 

Many ageing, yet still in-demand, SA Housing Trust dwellings dating back to the 1950s still stand today in suburbs and regional towns with abundant rural land on the outskirts where subdivision for housing should not be as difficult as it seems to be.

Why is this so, when compulsory acquisition of property to make way for Adelaide expressways has become so commonplace?

I believe, in addition to inflation and interest rates, opportunistic real estate manipulations have seriously contributed to many property price increases and, in particular, unrealistic rental rates.

Yorke Peninsula itself has, according to the last census, a great many vacant coastal properties that await perhaps only occasional family occupation.

That is the right of the owners, but it hardly seems fair when, as your editorial (YPCT, May 9) so correctly states, for those in desperate need, there is “no end to our housing crisis”.

It has all become a sad case of “the haves” and the “have-nots”, the latter of whom may only stand a chance in future markets by landing a significant family inheritance.

Neil Longbottom, Minlaton