Public housing solution needed to solve crisis, Greens MP says

During her visit to the city this week she said short-stay accommodation regulation was also needed to free up existing supply of houses in places like Port Fairy.

Developers being required to include social housing in future developments was also flagged to help solve the housing crisis.

Ms Mansfield was on Tuesday sitting in on a parliamentary inquiry into into rentals and housing affordability during her visit to Warrnambool.

"Among the regional renters to address the inquiry was one from Port Fairy talking about the impact that short stays have there and how they really have the potential to disrupt communities," she said.

"While you want tourist accommodation, it's making it really hard for the locals who've lived their whole lives there to stay housed and stay connected to their communities.

"It's also really hard for essential services to attract workers when housing isn't affordable."

Ms Mansfield said more needed to be done to free up existing stock.

"A lot of houses are sitting around empty," she said.

Ms Mansfield also flagged rental controls to keep accommodation affordable to prevent people getting a sudden $100 increase in their rent.

"People just can't absorb that," she said.

"It's really tough.

"We heard from people about how they're regularly being moved on. They have no security of tenure. They get unexpected rent rises that are sometimes huge.

"We had one person talking about how they are spending over 60 per cent of their income just on rent.

"The condition of the rental is often poor and they feel so disempowered to say anything about the condition of those houses because they're worried they'll be kicked out."

Ms Mansfield said more needed to be done around rental affordability and renters' rights.

And while there was record numbers of landlords selling investment properties on the back of increased regulations, land tax and interest rates, Ms Mansfield said the government needed to commit to supplying more public housing.

"There is good evidence to show that if the government invests more in genuine public housing - state owned and run housing - it improves housing affordability for everyone," she said.

"There's a flow on effect through the whole market, so that is one of the big things we'd like to see done."

And when it came to people who owned multiple rental properties, Ms Mansfield questioned whether landlords having to sell them was a bad thing.

"Is there a risk that they might have to sell a few of those if the regulations become too much or it becomes to expensive, well is that a bad thing putting more housing stock on the market?" she said.

Ms Mansfield said all the renters they heard from during the inquiry would love to buy a house if they could afford one.

From a planning perspective, she said she would like to see "inclusionary zoning" where developers were required to put aside a certain percentage of land for social and affordable housing.

Ms Mansfield said councils had told the parliamentary inquiry it would be a measure that would make a really big difference.

"Individual councils try and negotiate those things in developments but it's really difficult," she said.

"A statewide requirement could really improve the supply of that affordable and public housing."

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