Restrictions on who can live in granny flats will be removed so secondary dwellings can be rented on the open market, according to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“I know the rental market is tough and, right now, homeowners can’t rent secondary dwellings to anyone other than immediate family,” Palaszczuk said in a Facebook post on Friday.

“Changing this will mean many cheaper properties will enter the rental market, helping thousands of people across our state.”

As laws stood, only relatives could live in granny flats, Deputy Premier and Planning Minister Steven Miles said.

“Increasing housing diversity means more affordable housing options throughout the state,” he said.

“That’s why we’re allowing homeowners to rent spare rooms and granny flats.

“We’ve all been saddened to hear the stories about people sleeping in their cars, mums sleeping in their cars, sometimes granny sleeping in their cars.

“This is our chance to get those grannies out of cars and into granny flats.”

The changes will be reviewed after three years to ensure there are no unintended consequences.

“Each homeowner will of course need to ensure their secondary dwelling complies with fire and building provisions so accommodation for renters is safe,” Miles said.

The change follows a roundtable held last week ahead of a housing summit on October 20.

Opposition spokesman Jarrod Bleijie has scoffed at Miles’ suggestion the ‘granny flat fix’ was a direct outcome of the roundtable involving key industry and advocacy groups.

“Seriously, after eight years, we are to believe that the first time Steven Miles has heard of the housing crisis and the issue of granny flats is at a roundtable they urgently convened last week,” Bleijie said.

“Rubbish. I would say stakeholders have been writing to the Palaszczuk Government for years about this issue.”

Other potential changes include minimum requirements for affordable housing in new developments, and stakeholders say there needs to be significant increases in social housing levels.

Today’s announcement comes as Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch foreshadowed the release of Australian housing data, showing Queensland’s social housing register had stabilised.

“There are some encouraging signs in the data, which will be released later today,” she said.

“We’re seeing some 500 fewer households and over 4000 fewer people on the register than at this time last year,” she said.

“The data also indicates that single people, including those over 55, now make up the majority of people on the register. That is why our building program has committed to building more one and two bedroom units.”

At least 5000 new social housing dwellings need to be built every year for the next decade to solve the crisis, the Queensland Council of Social Service has said.

“Right now, we have about 50,000 people waiting on the social housing register and a growing number of Queenslanders presenting to community services desperately needing help with housing,” chief executive Aimee McVeigh said last week.

Social housing lobby Q Shelter congratulated Palaszczuk for acting quickly to progress a key idea from the recent Housing Round Table.

“Q Shelter has called for enabling and uniform approaches to secondary dwellings for some time and this represents an immediate idea that will create some housing options,” executive director Fiona Caniglia said.

“This approach will also provide a greater focus for many enterprises working on modular, small dwellings which are quick to build and which can be sited within existing properties. This approach to in-fill development has little impact on urban environments yet can create quality small homes at very low cost.”