4 September 2011
The state government plan for a 50 per cent increase in Sydneys housing supply to 25,000 new homes a year is welcome step forward, according to the Urban Taskforce.
This morning it was reported that the OFarrell Government will release a State Plan with a promise of 25,000 new homes annually over the next ten years. The Urban Taskforce has been advised that this is a reference to Sydney, not NSW.
The Urban Taskforces chief executive, Aaron Gadiel, said that as an absolute minimum Sydney needed to see an annual supply of 25,000 extra homes and NSW needs 39,000.
During the 1990s we routinely built new homes at this level, Mr Gadiel said.
The State Plan governments target is welcome, but its modest.
Sydney and NSW really need much more housing than this.
Even if Sydney were to build 25,000 extra homes a year the city would still be producing less homes per person, than Melbourne.
This target approximates the Federal Governments National Housing Supply Councils ˜medium trend projection for NSW.
Their independent analysis makes it clear that if NSW just produces homes at the medium trend level over the next ten years, the states housing undersupply is likely to blow out from 74,000 homes to 178,000 homes.
Mr Gadiel said that projections for around 25,000 extra homes for Sydney a year were not new.
The former NSW government already forecast 24,000 extra homes a year for Sydney over the next decade, he said.
But this forecast was criticised, when the governments own expert advisors concluded that the demand for extra housing in Sydney is likely to be between 25,000 and 50,000 dwellings per year.
Mr Gadiel said that NSW was currently building 45 homes a year per 10,000 residents.
Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT produces more than double the number of new homes per person, he said.
Queensland and South Australia produces one-and-a-half times NSWs number.
Tasmania and the Northern Territory exceed our per capita rate of housing construction by more than 25 per cent.
Mr Gadiel said that the real challenge would be to introduce solid policies to deliver on housing targets. This would require:
¢ appeal rights for rezoning applicants;
¢ the abolition or dramatic reform of development levies;
¢ timely decision-making enforced by a mandatory timetable;
¢ more flexibility for individual development proposals to be assessed on their own merits, rather than through rigid pre-determined local council controls;
¢ a better decision-making process – at arm’s-length from parochial politics – when a key reason for a development is to service the needs of people who aren’t currently locals; and
¢ special legislation to restore business confidence in past planning approvals.
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
