new housing supply.
🏢The goal: 2.24 million new homes by 2051, with each Council required to put in writing exactly how they will reach their mandated target by October 2026 – or expect a rap on the knuckles from Jacinta Allan.
Adversarial and slow Council performance is a major annoyance for proponents of in mid-high rise development. But, for the most part, it has not been a lack of zoned land or approvals for apartments that have prevented more such development from occuring.
🏘️Lower supply has been mostly due to the interrelated problems of #feasibilty and #demand – both of which are at record lows.
Feasibility is broken due to high costs, including ever-increasing taxes, charges and levies, meaning the prices developers need to charge to make an apartment project feasible are too high for most of the market to bear.
Demand is low because the price buyers would need to pay for new apartments is much higher than an older apartment or a house/townhouse, or it is more than most can afford to pay. And foreign investors that underpinned many larger projects are still out of the market.
My followers know that I'm absolutely in favour of reducing or eliminating local Council involvement and delay across all manner of planning approvals. A properly equipped Department of Transport and Planning or regional planning panels to assess permits would be far superior to the current Victorian, local Council system.
🛑The truth is the State Government has been the biggest blocker to new housing supply.
It has: ⛔avoided using existing planning powers for too long; ⛔been too slow to unlock developable land for more feasible and in-demand housing types – such as rezoning middle-ring sites or greenfields via the PSP program; ⛔continually increased design regulations and costs to make it harder to make #apartment projects stack up; and ⛔attacked the very industry it needs to be delivering homes for political gain
🤔Forcing Councils put colours on plans w/ theoretical densities is a long way from seeing these dwellings actually built and does not address the core issues.
PS. I have to mention the silly comparison between housing growth rates in established suburbs compared with growth areas over the last 30 years. Of course designated growth areas like Melton, Wyndham or Casey, which were mostly paddocks 30 years ago, would see a considerably greater percentage of dwelling growth than built out inner suburbs.