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Council’s initiative aimed at easing housing burden

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Cooktown vacant site
This parcel of land between Garden and Power streets, adjacent to Boundary Street, is being prepared for development. Photo: Cape York Weekly

Cooktown’s housing crisis could be alleviated somewhat with a new subdivision that council hopes will draw investment to the community.

Cook Shire mayor Peter Scott said a parcel of land off Boundary Street, in between Garden and Power streets, was being worked on to get it ready for a subdivision.

“There is a terrible lack of rental accommodation in town at the moment and this is something we have identified to see if we can do something about it,” he said.

“We’ve been talking to super funds and investment companies about the prospect of investing money into the blocks and building them for rent.”

Queensland Health is one of the biggest employers in Cooktown and Cook Shire councillors don’t want to see houses built or bought by them as the state government doesn’t pay rates.

“Everything is pointing to a major redevelopment of the Cooktown Hospital in the next five years and that means we could be seeing an additional 20-30 staff based here,” Cr Scott said.

“That’s our pitch to these developers – build houses for the rental market because there is a high demand. The Queensland government is more interested in renting houses than buying them.”

In the meantime, the council is preparing the land to make it easier and quicker for potential builders, providing access to water and sewerage at the site, which is just two blocks from the hospital.

Cook Shire is also building access roads and streets in preparation for a subdivision.

Cr Scott said there could be as many as 30 plots to build on, but predicted the number of residences to be slightly less than that.

“It would be up to the developer as to how they want to configure the land and package it up,” the mayor said.

“Everything will still need to meet council planning laws and state regulations.”

While Cooktown’s rental market has been stretched for several years, Cr Scott said the pandemic had applied even more pressure.

“What we’ve seen is that a lot of people who had investment properties here haved moved back and are living in them now, plus a lot of properties that were being rented were sold and are now owner-occupied,” he said.

“The positive for Cooktown is that people enjoy living here and want to live here, but there’s just not a lot of options at the moment.”

Cape York Weekly 14 September 2021

This article appeared in Cape York Weekly, 14 September 2021.

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