A structure or a discrete space within a structure intended for people to live in or where a person or group of people live. Thus a structure that people actually live in is a dwelling regardless of its intended purpose, but a vacant structure is only a dwelling if intended for human residence. A dwelling may include one or more rooms used as an office or workshop provided the dwelling is in residential use.
Context:
Dwellings are the main counting unit in the housing sector. Dwellings are reported for a variety of purposes including number of untenantable or tenantable, and occupied or vacant dwellings. Dwellings may be owned and/or, managed, and/or available for a use by a specific program, including headleased stock from private and government sources. A dwelling includes a boarding house building and boarding house units.
Boarding house rooms or beds are not identified as separate dwellings unless they are self-contained. Self-contained rooms are therefore defined as units and are counted as a separate dwelling.
For the public rental housing and state owned and managed Indigenous housing data collections, the number of tenancy (rental) units is used as a proxy for counting the number of dwellings.
Source and reference attributes
Submitting organisation:
National Housing Data Development Committee
Origin:
Australian Bureau of Statistics: 2001 Census Data Dictionary (Cat. no. 2901.0). Reference through: http://www.abs.gov.au.
