Backyard dongers mooted as granny flats

by Tony Lejo

April 10, 2008

VICTORIAN officials have questioned the cost effectiveness of a plan floated by WA’s housing department to install mining town-style dongers in people’s backyards to act as granny flats.

“The [proposed] program itself is excellent and the provision of these units is a very noble cause,” said Jeff Carstensen, who manages Victoria’s Movable Units Program, “ but you need to take certain issues into account.”

WA’s housing officials are considering temporarily housing seniors in movable, prefab, one bedroom units placed at the rear of a younger relative’s home. The units would be moved and reused when the elderly resident died or no longer needed the donger.

“You’d need to weigh them up with WA costs, but I guarantee you one thing,” said Mr Carstensen. “You couldn’t build a one bedroom unit for under $60,000.”

Departmental media spokesman Andrew Kikiros says costing had not yet been examined in depth, as the proposal was still embryonic. The department has circulated the plan to local councils around WA, but only Waneroo has responded to date.

While not having responded yet, the Town of Vincent recently discussed its response to the housing department. Town councillors supported the project in principle, but expressed misgivings similar to Mr Carstensen’s, whose advice the council recently sought.

Mr Carstensen said that since his program started in 1975, demand for dongers had blown out from needy seniors, to calls from other dependants and people with disabilities. He said that if his program were openly advertised, it would collapse under the weight of high demand.