Intrapac CEO Max Shifman argues in an opinion piece that Victoria's push for high-rise apartments in 60 activity centres is unbuildable and unaffordable, because apartments cost three to four times more per square metre than townhouses or detached homes. Middle-ring townhouses are the viable answer.
As I wrote in The Age: “It costs at least three times as much to build a square metre of a new apartment compared with a good quality townhouse, or four times more than a new detached home.”
I also said: “A generational shift is occurring towards accepting denser living, but we are a long way from new apartments being the solution to the housing supply problem.”
And I added: “The government needs to incentivise developers to build the kinds of homes people want, in places they want to live, that they can afford.”
The Age, 24 October 2024 — Read the full article