While Canberrans struggle to secure stable, affordable rental housing, nearly 2400 homes could be sitting empty across the ACT.
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Information gathered by Icon Water for the ACT government found 2397 residential sites recorded an average of equal to or less than 50 litres of water consumption per day between March 2021 and February 2022.
The 50-litre threshold represents about 10 per cent of the average water usage rate in the ACT, which can be used to determine if a home is likely to be empty.
The newly-released data comes as the ACT Legislative Assembly conducts an inquiry into housing and rental affordability.
A vacant property tax for home owners is one of the options being considered.
In more extreme cases, data provided exclusively to The Canberra Times by Icon Water found 632 properties were likely to be vacant for two years or more.
All 632 properties identified recorded an average daily water usage of less than 50 litres for every read between July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2022.
The analysis is not a definitive measure of the exact number of vacant homes, however, as many apartment blocks were not able to be included.
The data excludes Class A or Class B properties, commonly multi-storey unit complexes and townhouses, where they are not individually metered.
Properties where the meter was installed within the last six months were also excluded.
Vacant homes not a significant issue, ACT government says
Submissions to the ACT Legislative Assembly's inquiry, which will also explore causes of vacancies in residential and commercial properties, closed on August 8.
In its submission, the ACT government stated it did not currently identify vacant residential homes as a significant issue for Canberra, given they represented 1.9 per cent of all dwellings.
But there are concerns the number would likely be higher if apartments were part of the equation.
In his submission to the inquiry, Joel Dignam, founder of renter advocacy group Better Renting, said the thought of homes sitting vacant in the ACT was "an insult" when people were struggling to find homes.
"You have property investors treating housing like it's gold bullion, just lock it up in a vault and wait for the value to go up, which I think is particularly concerning given the challenges we have with housing in the ACT at the moment," he said.
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Mr Dignam said while the proportion of vacant homes is considered low compared to Canberra's total number of dwellings, the extra stock could go a long way to meet demand in the tight rental market and oversubscribed public housing sector.
As of July 4, there were 3060 applications on the waitlist for public housing in Canberra, including 206 priority applications such as those experiencing homelessness.
"The point isn't that these properties will go straight to the public housing supply, but the scale of what's being kept vacant is almost the same as the scale of people who have qualified for public housing," Mr Dignam said.
Vacancy tax to be considered
Vacancy tax is one of the options being explored by the ACT Legislative Assembly as part of the inquiry.
In 2018, the Victorian government introduced an additional tax for owners of homes in inner and middle Melbourne that are deemed vacant for more than six months.
The annual tax is set at 1 per cent of the capital improved value of taxable land.
Mr Dignam supports the introduction of a vacancy tax to generate revenue and deter investors from leaving homes empty.
"But if you're trying to discourage behaviour, you need to make the penalty from the tax significant enough that it will change behaviour and not be treated as just another cost of doing business," he said.
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