Finally Victoria’s Churches are opening up their massive landholdings, seeing land rightfully as a place for homes not speculation. In Churches’ radical plan for cheap rental housing, we hear that Victorian Churches own 2100 properties, some that have been vacant for over a century.

Hopefully the Churches look at the Community Land Trust model. This would see rent paid into a central fund. Over time rents increase, but are captured by the housing fund and used to purchase more land for housing. This is how a Community Land Trust works.

Please note (!) the words attributed to a church spokesman – “I definitely believe that it is God’s work (to use the land),” he said.