08 September 2010
The Urban Taskforce today welcomed the NSW Governments appointment of the Land and Housing Supply Taskforce, but will be seeking clarification as to whether they will still be tackling local council development restrictions. The Urban Taskforces chief executive, Aaron Gadiel, said the new group was originally announced by the NSW Government in the June state budget.
According to the budget papers, the group was to be charged with implementing a Comprehensive Housing Supply Strategy including implementing strategic planning targets through councils … and overseeing a review of development regulations.
The group was to identify and remove obstructions to the release of land, delivery of infrastructure and other necessary approvals.
Were surprised that there was no mention of the NSW Governments Comprehensive Housing Supply Strategy in todays media release by Planning Minister Tony Kelly, Mr Gadiel said.
The strategy was announced just three months ago, and the budget papers said this group of people would be providing ˜strong governance arrangements to implement the strategy.
The full implementation of the Comprehensive Housing Supply Strategy is crucial, because the state has just come through four successive years of record low levels of housing construction and NSW is still producing less new homes per head of population than any other state.
Mr Gadiel said that he welcomed Mr Kellys statement that the group would be:
¢ Looking for solutions for sustainable funding on infrastructure in the greenfield areas;
¢ Reporting back on strategies to reduce the requirements of state government agencies for new housing developments; and
¢ Focus on such issues as the ongoing implementation of reforms to development contributions to bring land to market as efficiently as possible.
But theres no mention of getting local government to actually implement strategic planning targets and reviewing their development regulations, Mr Gadiel said.
We hope the Land and Housing Supply Taskforce will still carry out these key tasks, as foreshadowed in the governments June announcement.
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
