A passenger railway service connecting Raymond Terrace with Newcastle and Maitland has been floated as a way to attract housing development to the area and reduce population pressure on other parts of Port Stephens.
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The ambitious proposal was one of several innovative ideas to come out of the day-long Port Stephens Housing Forum held at Medowie last Friday.
Other areas of focus included greater infield development such as increasing the number of granny flats and additional dwellings on existing home blocks, an increase in the number of town houses and multi-storey apartment developments.
There was also a call for council to look to state and federal governments for incentives for developers to provide more social affordable housing as part of their developments.
Drawing together invited representatives from community groups, developers, real estate agents and council staff, the forum has been hailed a success by Port Stephens deputy mayor Cr Leah Anderson.
"We had a few industry people say to us that Port Stephens Council with our place planning and this sort of interactive community solutions focused discussions around housing is leading the way as far as local government is concerned," Cr Anderson said.
"They said many other councils are being reactive or doing their own planning without engaging the relevant stakeholders."
The forum was called to deal with the housing crisis in Port Stephens which is set to worsen unless a further 4000 homes than the 7000 previously projected can be found in the next 20 years.
Cr Anderson said research provided by GYDE Consulting which ran the forum painted a picture of a real need to increase the number of apartments, flats and town houses across Port Stephens.
"At present 65 per cent of our stock is three to four bedroom detached homes, 15 per cent is town houses and five per cent is apartments and flats and there is an average of 2.4 people per home.
"At the moment we've got predominantly your standard residential dwelling. Three, four or five bedroom house. There is very little stock for small starting families or the workers."
Cr Anderson said the shortage of smaller rental properties had led to Harbourside Haven having to close one of its facilities.
"A Harbourside representative who took part in the forum told us that they had to shut down their Fingal Bay facility because they didn't have staff because workers couldn't find accommodation in the area," she said.
"There were lots of great conversations around what does the future look like and what sort of housing stock do we need and where do we need it.
"We're talking about development around town centres, but there's lots of different things that need to be considered such as which are the best town centres to be developed, but also how do develop them when the infrastructure is not there yet.
"Schools, transport and medical facilities all need to be looked at.
"Transport is a huge one. We looked at Raymond Terrace as offering a really good opportunity for new development, but there's no transport.
"If there was a train line to Raymond Terrace, it would really take off."
Cr Anderson said the findings of the forum would be compiled by council staff and conveyed to the participants as well as the community.
"The outcomes of the forum will help inform the housing strategy which should be ready to go to council in late-February next year and then go out to community consultation," she said.
She said she was confident with the ideas floated at the forum that council could meet Port Stephens projected housing needs.
Michael Hartshorn
Since starting in 1985 at the then Melbourne Herald, journalism has taken me around Australia from Victoria, to the Northern Territory, Cairns in Queensland and now Port Stephens. After all those years there is still something special about informing and connecting with readers.
Since starting in 1985 at the then Melbourne Herald, journalism has taken me around Australia from Victoria, to the Northern Territory, Cairns in Queensland and now Port Stephens. After all those years there is still something special about informing and connecting with readers.
