Advocacy

AEON’s submission to the Productivity Commission’s Housing Supply Regulation Public Inquiry is an important contribution to the national conversation on housing diversity.

Backed by letters of support from allied organisations and professionals, the submission maps a clear pathway toward unlocking housing supply by addressing regulatory barriers that currently constrain community-led innovation. 

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Our Policy Recommendations to the Productivity Commission​

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• Establishing Defined Housing Typologies: We recommended that the Australian Government adopt formal definitions for cooperative housing typologies—specifically 'regenerative village' and 'cohousing development'—within state and territory planning instruments to distinguish collective land stewardship from conventional subdivisions.

• Removing Regulatory and Zoning Barriers: We proposed introducing clear zone permissibility across rural, low-density residential, and urban infill zones. Our advocacy calls for leveraging tested frameworks—such as the Bellingen Shire framework and the Multiple Occupancy (MO) model —to guarantee approval certainty and protect collective housing pathways.

• Recognising Infrastructure Self-Sufficiency: We urged federal and state authorities to formally recognise that cooperative developments utilising community-scale, off-grid water and energy infrastructure effectively multiply land supply at no public cost.

• Modernising Utility Regulation: We called for a formal definition of "community microgrid" in the National Electricity Law to establish a proportionate regulatory and compliance environment designed for community networks rather than major industrial providers.

• Unlocking Collective Financial Frameworks: We advocated for updated treasury guidance on alternative tenures—including Community Land Trusts and cooperative share structures—to enable residents to build non-speculative equity and secure finance without traditional mortgage models.

• Partnering for Indigenous Self-Determination: We championed the establishment of a dedicated First Nations Cooperative Housing Taskforce, ensuring policy changes are co-designed by Indigenous housing organisations and draw upon traditional land stewardship models.

• Advancing Modern Methods of Construction (MMC): We recommended a dedicated prefabrication stream within a national demonstration program to create repeatable demand, lower regional building costs, and counter local construction bottlenecks.

• Funding Resilient Peak Capacity: We requested structural federal support to establish a national knowledge bank, document project mapping, and systematically upskill local councils to process alternative developments seamlessly.

 

Read the full submission here