4th July 2012
The approval figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for housing and non-residential buildings show a welcome improvement for NSW on recent months, says the Urban Taskforce.
Higher density home approvals in NSW are slowly moving upwards, says Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson, but at a much slower rate than Victorias dramatic rise in this area.
The most positive upward trend has been in the non-residential sector where the monthly approvals have risen from $490 million a year ago to $570 million in May 2012.
The number of approvals for houses and higher density homes in NSW are almost equal at around 1,300 a month each over the last two years. Across the rest of Australia the number of house approvals is well above higher density approvals.
This bears out the Census data that indicated that Sydney now has 27.6% apartments and 12.5% terraces and townhouses leaving only 58.6% of housing units as detached houses.
The Urban Taskforce is still concerned that NSW is not performing well on a per capita base compared to other states. The ABS graphs indicate actual number of approvals but when these are adjusted on a per capita basis NSW has a long way to go to become the leading state in Australia.
