If you didn’t know better you’d think this housing crisis was the perfect opportunity for certain parts of the property industry to demand lower standards – in planning, in affordable housing, in basic standards for heating and cooling and even for the quality of building construction.
First was South Australia. It decided to go for brown (not gold, not green) and cut standards for the lowest income people who might end up on a Mt Barker housing estate to the 2019 building code standards.
Then came the New South Wales Productivity Commission which said – among a few good bits – that it would be okay in this housing crisis to do away with sunlight in smaller less resourced apartments and to pause on building reform.
It reminded us of the Melbourne penchant under a former state government that dropped the need for actual windows (any windows at all) in bedrooms, under a broadscale “build anything anywhere” mentality that has seriously damaged Melbourne’s brand.
Now the would be mayor of the southern city said if he wins the top job he will drop an affordable housing target.
Nicholas Reece who was upgraded from deputy lord mayor to mayor in June told The Sydney Morning Herald that this was needed because the economy is struggling.
It was the pressure from the YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard) that did it, at the lord mayoral debate on Monday, the SMH said.
The affordable housing or inclusionary zoning provisions are an effective policy in places such as the UK.
At last week’s Let’s Hack Housing open mic forum housing observer/commentator Tim Williams told us that in his home patch of the UK inclusionary zoning of at least 40 per cent is mandated and no-one complains because that’s the rule and everyone knows it from the start.
But in Australia there are no rules that can apparently stick to Aussie developers – they constantly want change that derisks their work.
In Melbourne Greens lord mayoral candidate Roxane Ingleton called for 30 per cent affordable housing and for height limits to be removed.
Reece was reported as saying this was not going to entice developers to plant the first shovel nor would it protect important heritage streets.
Instead he called for “more development in growth areas such as Arden and Fisherman’s Bend and the redevelopment of office buildings into residential housing, pointing to 80 buildings identified by the Property Council of Australia and Hassell architects as suitable for redevelopment which he said would deliver 4000 homes,” The SMH said.