Lake Macquarie City Council-owned land could be used for affordable housing under a plan to be unveiled by Labor mayor Adam Shultz.
Cr Shultz will use his mayoral minute at the council meeting on Monday night to advocate that two parcels of land at Cardiff and Booragul be explored for partnerships with affordable housing providers.
The parcels were identified by the council's Property Advisory Panel through a land audit as potentially suitable for affordable housing.
A spokesperson for the council said, "It would be premature to disclose details of the two blocks before the matter is tabled at Monday evening's council meeting" because it's a mayoral minute rather than a council staff recommendation.
Cr Shultz's mayoral minute calls for council staff to prepare an expression of interest "seeking proposals from suitably qualified and registered Community Housing Providers (CHP) for the development and ongoing management of affordable housing on appropriate council-owned land."
A memo would also be written "outlining the next steps, key milestones and indicative timing for the expression of interest process".
Cr Shultz said housing affordability was one of the most significant challenges in the broader Hunter region.
The council's recently adopted Lake Macquarie Housing Strategy stated that 37 per cent of rental households were under stress and 12.1 per cent of home owners were struggling to pay their mortgage.
Both were higher than the regional NSW average.
"Hopefully there's a lot of interest, and we're inundated with CHPs that have proposals," Cr Shultz told the Newcastle Herald.
"That'll take them some time. Obviously, they have to do some due diligence on it and work through what would work and what the ownership structure would look like and how many dwellings could they get on those sites and then potentially how do they fund it?
"Through grants from other levels of government in the affordable housing space, do they have some capital?
"All of those things have to be worked through, but this is us saying, 'We want to be part of the solution'.
"We want to have a practical and tangible contribution to affordable housing in our city."
Cr Shultz said it would be his preference that the council maintained ownership of the land at Cardiff and Booragul and struck a peppercorn rent deal with CHPs.
"There could be a long-term lease of the land," he said.
"All of that has to be worked through. It may be 50-year leases, but let's see what the expressions of interest come up with and then assess what's on the table and move forward."
Cr Shultz made starting a conversation about housing affordability in Lake Macquarie one of his key election promises in 2024.
That was realised with the hosting of the Lake Macquarie Housing Forum in April last year.
About 100 stakeholders attended, including state and local government politicians, developers, affordable housing providers, not-for-profit community organisations and industry experts.
