In collaboration with Quantify Strategic Insights, UDIA Victoria has released the report ‘Rethinking 70/30: The Cost of Building Where We Already Live’.
The report, launched at a member event on the 21st May was presented by Quantify Strategic Insights Head of Research & Strategy, Rob Burgess where we had the opportunity to unpack some of its findings alongside Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Planning Minister, David Southwick MP, Samantha Lindquist (O’Shaughnessy), Project Director at Perri Group and Shem Curry, Director, Contour Consultants and moderated by UDIA Victoria's Maurice Maytuckey.
As covered in the Herald Sun, the report identifies major constraints across infrastructure, planning, and project feasibility that are preventing housing delivery in established areas at the scale the Victorian Government wants to achieve. It also challenges the long-standing assumption that infill housing is inherently cheaper and more efficient than greenfield development, showing that this only holds where infrastructure capacity exists.
Once that capacity is exhausted, costs rise sharply and can match or exceed greenfield delivery, while also shifting more of the burden onto the public sector. As a result, the report concludes that a more balanced, capacity-led approach is needed, that reforms infill systems over time while continuing to enable growth areas to deliver housing at scale in the near term.