Perth has long relied on a clear-and-flatten rule on its sand plain for housing construction. Now there are moves to reject the system, along with a dangerous fringe development at North Stoneville. Has Perth’s urban sprawl hit the wall? Perhaps greener, transit-led urban regeneration now has a chance.
The West Australian, not known as an environmental advocate, has published an astonishing article on the urban planning regulation – the clear-and-flatten rule – that has driven Perth’s urban sprawl for decades. The article shows there is growing support to remove it. This follows the first rejection of a major urban sprawl project in the Perth hills at North Stoneville.
Could these two events trigger the historic end of Perth’s 150 kilometres of urban sprawl and enable us to re-urbanise as most other cities are doing?
Bulldozing mature trees
In the past 10 years, Perth has sprawled a further 30 km north and south into native bushland. Despite being one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, the bush and mature trees on this sand plain were cleared and bulldozed flat. A planning regulation – the clear-and-flatten rule – has been applied since 1967. It is the core reason why Perth had a very cheap way to prepare land for housing development.
The article in the West Australian this week suggests we need to conserve remaining trees and plant more. The clear-and-flatten approach is the biggest source of tree loss, especially mature trees, on the Swan coastal plain.
The article shows that local governments and civil society groups now can see we must remove this regulation that allows cheap housing to be built at the expense of our environment.
Mature canopy cools streets and homes, provides habitat, stores carbon, slows stormwater, and where this has been rebuilt in old suburbs like Subiaco, a full canopy has been created. It cannot be created quickly by planting small saplings after every existing tree has been bulldozed after clear-and-flatten.
CSIRO analysis of Perth found that each 10 percentage-point increase in tree-canopy cover was associated with a 0.62°C reduction in land-surface temperature. Local government areas with low canopy could be up to 5 degrees hotter than better-treed areas.
The article in the West Australian this week suggests we need to conserve remaining trees and plant more
Yet some of Perth’s newer fringe suburbs have barely one or two per cent canopy. Alkimos, Eglinton and Butler have been reported at between 1 and 1.8 per cent, while Treeby has around 2 per cent.
The WA government has now adopted a target of 30 per cent tree canopy across Perth and Peel by 2040 and 1 million additional trees by 2035. Those targets will be extraordinarily difficult to meet if planning rules continue to permit the removal of mature vegetation while government pays to plant seedlings elsewhere.
A sapling is valuable, but it is not an immediate substitute for a mature tree. Perth needs both large-scale planting and enforceable retention of all the surrounding mature trees – not clear and flatten them.
The rejection of the clear-and-flatten rule will help stop urban sprawl as the native bush has many better functions already being proposed.
The Perth Hills rejection
The rejection of the proposed North Stoneville development was also an historic moment for Perth, not just the Hills, where strong regulations have saved trees for many decades.
The State Administrative Tribunal upheld the refusal of a structure plan covering 535 hectares and proposing 1001 lots for about 2800 residents. It found that the plan failed to demonstrate that bushfire and evacuation risks could be managed acceptably, while also identifying serious problems with traffic impacts and the reliability of the supporting technical evidence.
This was a sound decision about an unsuitable proposal in an unsuitable place.
But its significance should reach well beyond one development in the Perth Hills.
North Stoneville also exposed the deeper failure of the growth model that has shaped the sand plain developments for half a century: clear-and-flatten. That same model was going to be introduced to the Hills by the developer who has done most of the urban sprawl on the sand plain.
The tribunal did not rule that North Stoneville could never be considered for any future development. Nor did it declare a general prohibition on urban expansion. That larger decision must now be made by government and enable a more tree-oriented development on the site.
Our contention is straightforward: wholesale clearing and flattening should no longer be accepted as the default method of producing housing on Perth’s fringe. No other Australian city would allow this.
The wrong housing debate
Western Australia urgently needs more homes. But that does not mean every housing proposal is good housing policy. We have for too long had such cheap land due to clear-and-flatten. It was impossible for denser, reurbanisation that is much needed, to get a look in. Perth developers for decades have only done very expensive density in wealthy suburbs as they couldn’t compete with the sprawl housing.
That larger decision must now be made by government and enable a more tree-oriented development on the site
The choice is not between fringe housing and no housing. It is between continuing an increasingly dysfunctional form of urban expansion and creating homes in locations that already have – or can efficiently develop – transport, employment, schools, shops, healthcare and community infrastructure.
Cheap to build, costly to run
The cheap car-dependent outer suburbs are now reaching their limits for other reasons as well. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare notes that these communities commonly have poorer access to employment, education and social infrastructure, while car expenses consume a larger proportion of household income. This is only going to get worse with urban sprawl, especially when it’s only got 1per cent canopy cover.
Fringe development can appear inexpensive because only part of its real cost is reflected in the price of the block.
The roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, water, power, sewerage, emergency services and community facilities required to make a suburb function are frequently delivered later – and substantially funded by taxpayers and utility customers.
Research by Infrastructure Victoria found that, excluding transport, capital costs for infrastructure in greenfield areas can be two to four times those in established areas where existing systems have capacity. It also found transport has the largest capital, operating, maintenance and replacement costs over the life of a dwelling.
The lesson applies directly to Perth. When the purchase price of a fringe home excludes much of the infrastructure bill, we have not made housing cheaper. We have shifted costs from the developer and initial purchaser to households, governments and future generations.
Beyond our travel budget
People have a remarkably persistent daily travel-time budget. The principle often called the Marchetti constant suggests that cities tend to organise themselves around about one hour of travel per person each day, that is, 30 minutes on average to work.
Fringe development can appear inexpensive because only part of its real cost is reflected in the price of the block
The roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, water, power, sewerage, emergency services and community facilities required to make a suburb function are frequently delivered later – and substantially funded by taxpayers and utility customers
As development pushes farther from employment, education and services, residents exceed that practical budget. The consequences are familiar: longer commutes, congestion, time lost to families, greater household transport costs and reduced access to opportunity. The result is showing increased road rage across Perth.
Electrifying cars will reduce emissions and local air pollution, and it is an essential part of the transition. But replacing every petrol vehicle with an electric vehicle will not make a distant suburb closer, reduce congestion or provide access for people who cannot drive.
Net zero therefore requires both electrification and accessibility. We must remove oil from transport while reducing the amount of compulsory travel designed into daily life.
Australia’s cars and light commercial vehicles produce 62 per cent of transport emissions, and transport decarbonisation requires more than changing drivetrains. It requires far more trips to be made by public transport, walking, cycling and other forms of active and shared mobility, and this depends on how we plan our cities.
Density without destruction
The alternative to urban sprawl is not a forest of poorly designed high-rise towers. It is urban regeneration: medium and higher-density housing concentrated around excellent public transport, established centres, employment corridors and walkable local destinations.
Perth has extensive greyfield land – ageing houses, underused shopping centres, oversized parking areas, declining commercial strips and low-density development close to railways and major roads. Much of this land can accommodate more housing while creating greener streets, more diverse homes and stronger local economies.
Transit-oriented developments, precinct-oriented developments and sustainability-oriented developments can put housing where infrastructure already exists. Mid-tier electric transit along major corridors can connect railway stations, universities, hospitals, shopping centres and employment areas while catalysing redevelopment around accessible, walkable station precincts.
This is not merely a transport program. It is a housing, climate, productivity and urban-regeneration strategy.
Planning and transit must be integrated from the beginning. If governments establish high-quality transit only after land has been developed – or build stations surrounded by car parks rather than homes, services and public spaces – they surrender much of the accessibility and land value that public investment creates.
Net zero tram corridors offer one model: electrified mid-capacity transit combined with dense, affordable and energy efficient housing, local renewable energy, walking, cycling and electric feeder services. They provide a practical way to accommodate population growth without pushing the metropolitan boundary endlessly north, south and east.
A new planning compact
The need to end urban sprawl and focus on urban regeneration should prompt seven reforms.
- Establish a firm metropolitan growth boundary and create a series of National Parks in the bushland areas
- Remove the right to clear-and-flatten in any future urban development
- Require every major development to publish its full lifecycle infrastructure costs, including transport, utilities, schools, healthcare and emergency services – and disclose who will pay
- Direct most new urban housing into transit-served regeneration precincts, including affordable and social housing on suitable public and private land, especially near rail lines
- Make canopy, biodiversity, embodied carbon, operational emissions, household transport costs and climate risk into core planning tests rather than optional aspirations
- Direct the next major tranche of greenfield development to regional centres and surrounding rural towns where new housing can support existing communities and agricultural economies with walkable centres and services
- Plan for new passenger rail services linking these regional and rural towns to Perth
