Sunshine Coast News is continuing to receive a flood of letters about Belli Park property owner Jacqueline Morton’s appeal against a council order to decommission tiny homes on her land.
On Saturday we published some of these letters but we have received so many more since then that we have decided to run a special Your Say today.
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
I believe that council should allow these people to stay on the property.
It appears to me that the dwellings are well made and environmentally friendly and sustainable. We are in a housing crisis and if we can allow people to live comfortably and safely on a property whilst not harming neighbours then it seems to me to be a great solution for some people.
I believe it’s a humanitarian approach and I think it should definitely be considered as a solution to tackle the difficulties many people are facing.
Lynne Gruell, Alexandra Headland
Some of the obvious questions are: is the property owner receiving rent for these homes? Do they pay rates? Are they sewered correctly? Is it short or long-term accommodation? What happens to their rubbish? Do all the neighbors want to do the same?
People tend to use or abuse the town plan for their own benefit. In principle, there is no difference between refusing the $2 billion Sekisui Resort and refusing these small homes because they both broke the town planning rules.
Adrian Just, Mount Coolum
With the price of housing and the many who are homeless, it’s only normal that people should have the right to make a place to live in the best way they know how to.
There’s so many people that need a home and it’s very shameful of the councils to evict people from properties where they call home.
What’s with you councils? Get with the times and have a heart after people.
Marilyn Denyer, Wellington, NSW
It’s a travesty that in our economic climate and a time when there is so much need in our nation that some pencil-pushing bureaucrat feels the need to flex a little bit of malicious muscle and put people out of their homes and onto the street.
This is a time when we need to be able to give a helping hand to those who are doing it tough and finding it really hard to make ends meet or find a place to call home.
People with property who are providing spaces and a chance for families and individuals to have somewhere to lay their heads at night are a wonderful reflection of the generous nature of Australians. However, this generosity has only been met with disdain by some small-minded rule keeper who has forgotten that the rules were made to be broken and that with a wave of their magic wand they can be changed to support people in a tough times.
And that time is now. We face so many struggles right now. The cost of living is sky-rocketing and even people who have jobs can’t find a home to rent or buy. Mum and dads are going without meals so their children can eat. Australia is not a place for the light-hearted to live, and now people have to contend with heartless and cruel government policy makers who have forgotten the very people that they’re making homeless.
This is, frankly, not who we are as a people or a nation. We look out for each other. We have enough to contend with just trying to live from day to day. We don’t need the heartless and callous machine of Government knocking at our door as well.
Shane Kuhl, Buderim
How very thoughtful and kindhearted of the lady who made her land available for the people who needed somewhere to live in the tiny house and caravan when they were
obviously desperate.
Our so-called council have many things to answer for but this is just a disgrace. They talk of just how bad and desperate it is for people to find housing but decide in their wisdom that these people must go where to?
Well, they really don’t care as long as it doesn’t infringe on their so-called council rules.
Diane Derby, Marcoola
Firstly, I read the Sunshine Coast Council is condemning the tiny houses on the Morton property providing for homeless people. This is unduly bureaucratic and out of touch with the community housing crisis.
Then I read that: “Lavender Co plans to build eight guest homes on its six-hectare Yandina property later this year and early 2025, to provide a home away from home for people with disabilities.”
I assume this will also be disallowed too.
R. Williams, Moffat Beach
I live on a 5500sqm rural residential block. In two years I will turn 80 and my wife 76. She has rapidly developing Alzheimer’s. It is our intention to have a large van on site, with the purpose of housing a carer. We are not going into care, that is a sad way to end one’s life and unaffordable.
Council, stop telling us what we can and cannot do.
Name supplied
I live on the NSW Central Coast and tiny homes are an essential solution to this housing crisis, especially with a large property. It must have been delightful having all that space and not being squashed up to neighbours, as in the suburbs.
Please Queensland, don’t you care about your people? Step up and get in line with our current needs, please.
Catherine Curtis, Narara, NSW
I support these ladies in their efforts to help those unable to find accommodation. I’m in the same situation, trying to move to a town closer to family members, and have found it near impossible to find accommodation.
John Brown
I think it is a good idea that landholders are helping take on the housing problems we are currently facing.
As a 68-year-old pensioner struggling to survive with rents of $650 currently and not knowing where it is going to stop, our only hope seems to be with generous landowners willing to rent land to us if we can afford to buy a tiny home.
The Australian Government has turned a blind eye to the problem, living comfortably in their beautiful homes, while people like myself and families with kids suffer from years of government neglect. The only way we can afford to pay rent is to cut our food and utilities, and even then it’s not enough.
Michele Lahiff
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
