You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Social housing in one of Perth’s southern suburbs has been left standing with no completion date in sight, even though it was due to be finished four years ago.
The Hilton housing revitalisation project should have delivered 14 architecturally designed timber-frame social housing homes across the suburb by 2022.
But as of this month, construction has only begun – and stalled – on six of the Bernard Seeber Architects homes, with the remaining eight given a standard home-build design instead.
WA Greens leader Brad Pettitt said the years of delays and multiple builders entering into liquidation resulted in half-finished homes that could have been used during the current housing crisis.
“There should be two families living in here now, but despite repeatedly pushing the state government on this, they’re failing to finish these properties,” Pettitt said.
“Most depressingly, this is not an isolated incident. These are scattered all over this suburb, unfinished houses in the middle of a housing crisis.
“The government needs to get on and actually finish this housing. It’s a really good design by a really great local architect, and it’s outrageous that it’s not completed.”
Pettitt was the mayor of Fremantle when Bernard Seeber Architects won the design competition in 2017 for the social housing project.
The 14 houses were to be built on seven different sites in Hilton and were anticipated to cost $200,000 per house at the time of the design.
But Pettitt says more than $4 million has been spent on the project to date.
“If they had delivered it on time, at the time, these would have been both inhabited and delivered much more cheaply than they have now. But instead, we’re going to spend way more than needed to be spent, whilst failing to even deliver these houses,” he said.
“And you can see the amount of money that’s been wasted here on toilets and security, and all those things, rather than getting in and finishing houses.”
Pettitt said the original builder assigned to the project went broke, as well as the builder who was hired after.
Small builder Jaguar Constructions currently holds the contract for the homes and told 9 News Perth it took over the project in 2024, but hasn’t worked on site since December.