b'APRIL 2025CASE STUDY 2:AFFORDABLE HOUSING TAXES MAKING HOMES UNAFFORDABLEThe economic irony of the very existence of affordable housing contributions (taxes) underpins the need for this paper.Affordable housing contributions, as applied to Transport Oriented Development sites and precincts, have undermined the efficacy of these reforms by significantly reducing the feasibility of the levels of the affordable housing contributions (taxes). The philosophy of the renowned urban economist Edward Glaeser: Great cities are not static, they constantly change and take the world with them 18has been adopted, but then undermined.NSW applies a tax on new home buyers to pay for a small cohort of the population that are deemed eligible for affordable housing. The very people who have been hit hardest by price rises, the people who suffer the impost of a contemplative and restrictive planning system that has not kept up with demand, those who end up paying for the building regulations that have slowed down the delivery of housing while increasing the costs, those who suffer the delays and costs associated with design panels are being hit with a fee to help the government deal with the problems which its regulatory regime, its fees, taxes and charges, created in the first place.Governments across Australia have relied on the property sector to deliver rivers of taxation revenue. But in NSW, the planners, building design and delivery regulators, have created a housing supply crisis, and are now taxing new home purchasers to pay for their delinquency.18 Ibid, p318'