Thursday, 12 September 2024

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (14:53): (826) My constituency question is to the Minister for Planning. Minister, will the government intervene to ensure that the building at 333 Exhibition Street in my electorate cannot be turned into a short-stay building, evicting over a hundred long-term renters? Victoria, as we know, is in a housing crisis. Rents are skyrocketing, if you can even find an available rental property. More and more people are sleeping in their cars, sleeping rough or sleeping on couches across Victoria. Now in Carlton in my electorate hotel group Panache wants to turn a residential apartment building at 333 Exhibition Street into a building full of temporary short-stay apartments. Panache wants to turn about 85 of the tower’s 144 apartments into essentially hotel rooms. This would force around 120 long-term renters out of their homes. In a housing crisis we cannot afford for any more long-term rentals to be taken out of the market and put onto the short-stay market, so I urge the minister to intervene in this case.