Many of the announcements from today's National Cabinet meeting borrow heavily from our Resilience. Recovery. Reform. Policy Platform (https://lnkd.in/g8bF2FPd).
Key announcements: – Increased #Housing Accord target of building 1.2 million new homes over five years from 1 July 2024 – $3B New Home Bonus to incentivise performance by the States/Territories to exceed their respective housing targets – $500M Housing Support Program, a competitive funding program to accelerate enabling #infrastructure or amenities for new development – A National #Planning Reform Blueprint to deal with planning, #zoning, land release etc. to improve and speed up supply – Proper coordination of housing #supply and #migration settings across the country
There is also mention of "consideration of a phased introduction of inclusionary zoning and planning" which, if rushed or done incorrectly, has the potential to undermine the aforementioned positive moves. [Personal opinion: any such measures should be limited to government land releases, else they become a cross-subsidy from the attached market housing which negatively impacts the attainability equation.]
As with all such announcements, the devil is in the detail, or in this case the actual implementation of these measures at State and Local level. There is no question that with the current settings and forecast, there is little to no hope of meeting the 1.2 million new homes target (or even the former 1.0 million goal). Action will have to be swift at all levels to reverse this trend.
It will be fascinating whether the States can truly reform their planning regimes to allow the delivery of their part of the bargain – not only theoretically, but in actual dwelling delivery that meets diverse market and demographic needs and can be delivered feasibly by the housing development industry.