How do you manage suburban sprawl in a heavily-urbanised country where the “quarter acre block” dream is dug in – and encouraged in some quarters – like a goanna tick?
Not very well, it seems, judging by the response of governments at both state and federal level.
Perth, not a populous place by international standards, nonetheless proclaims itself “the world’s longest city,” a north-south megalopolis clearly visible from space which gobbles up just about every available square inch of Indian Ocean coastline. Despite government targets, the building of new homes in urban (infill) suburbs has been eclipsed by those in outer “greenfield” areas like Wanneroo (in the north) and Armadale (south east).
In a surprise to absolutely no-one, many of those new homes are single house and land packages (apartment supply has “dropped off a cliff”) turbo-boosted by federal and state stimulus packages which make a mockery of the WA government’s own “Directions 2031” growth management strategy. Thus we see government acquiescence to the “quarter acre” fantasy generating the viral spread of suburbia and lining the pockets of developers who often scoff at the concept of “responsible growth,” all while infrastructure and environmental concerns lag well behind.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, Adelaide. Another “long” city on a north-south axis, Greater Adelaide saw its 30-Year Plan for sustainable, livable growth blown up when Premier Peter Malinauskas announced he would expedite the building of almost 24,000 homes on re-zoned land at places like Hackham (in the city’s far south) and Concordia (in the north).
Supporting transport infrastructure, you ask? Not happening, says minister Tom Koutsantonis, while planning minister Nick Champion gob-smackingly surrendered much of the responsibility for how it all plays out to the market: “people live in these communities, they work, they contribute to society, they’re good communities (so) … it will be the market that decides”.
It’s a pattern that repeats itself across Australia, governments of either political hue happy to advance the interests of donor developers via mechanisms such as hands-off code assessment regimes or the further streamlining of planning processes “to cut red tape,” consequences be damned. It’s a recipe for disaster, and it’s happening at a larger scale on our east coast, particularly in our fastest-growing (and now, officially, most populous) city: Melbourne.
They got there on a technicality (and a few years earlier than expected) but a re-drawn map saw Melbourne leapfrog Sydney as our most populous city just last month. After a moment’s self-congratulation, attention has returned to whether Melbourne – forecast by 2050 to be some 150 square kilometres of sprawling, unbroken suburbia – was equipped to handle such a lofty perch.
The answer, as things stand, is an emphatic “no” – and Melbourne’s geography means there are no easy solutions.
Melbourne’s CBD, a downtown area better suited to the needs of the 19th and 20th centuries, is simply no longer up to the task, situated as it is some 70 kilometres of often-inadequate road and rail away from the city’s forecast, 2050 eastern edge (see above). What’s more, in contrast to Sydney, its very centrality likely requires the development of multiple ‘mini CBDs’ to service outer areas and relieve pressure on Melbourne’s traditional CBD from all points of the compass.
When NSW sought alternatives to a CBD at the eastern end of Sydney’s sprawl, it chose centrally-located Parramatta, investing billions of dollars – from government and private sources – to bring commercial and retail space, entertainment precincts, education and transport hubs, medical and judicial facilities, government offices, medium or high-density residential nodes and ancillary infrastructure up to scratch. Melbourne has no such luxury: building just one mini CBD in, say, the north eastern suburb of Heidelberg isn’t going to improve services for residents of Frankston (to the south) or Werribee (in the west).
More than one mini CBD means Victoria’s government and corporate sector must allocate significantly more resources than NSW put into Parramatta – an expensive proposition to put it mildly. Likely sites for a mini CBD like Clayton (south east), Box Hill (east/north east) and Sunshine (west) boast some of the amenity expected of a CBD, but nowhere near all.
It just so happens that Clayton, Box Hill and Sunshine are all earmarked as major transport hubs on the planned Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) which would see 90km of mainly underground tunnels connecting lines on the existing, CBD-oriented rail system.
Built over three stages, the first trains would run on the loop’s eastern section by 2035, although the above-ground connection to the SRL’s western terminus (Werribee/Wyndham Vale) would not come online until several decades later.
A massive, $125 billion undertaking, the SRL is seen as a government-manufactured “magnet” for the private investment necessary to spawn mini-CBDs, based on the apparent premise that “if you build it, they will come.”
If you look at the map of Melbourne we’ve provided (above) the SRL may appear “too close” to Melbourne’s existing CBD to service Melbourne’s far flung fringes, but its inner-to-mid suburban setting is designed to incentivise the very infill residential building they’re struggling to produce in Perth (above).
Will it be enough? Infrastructure experts have warned Spring Street [the Victorian government] that the SRL alone won’t guarantee the kind of medium-to-high-density residential nodes seen as “optimal infill” development and, partly as a result, won’t deliver enough homes for Melbourne’s growing population.
Yet again, Australians’ dream of spacious surroundings, the market’s desire to accommodate it, and a hands-off government approach imperils prudent, environmentally-responsible planning.
This laissez-faire approach has more than its share of drawbacks. Professor Jago Dodson, director of RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research, says it “has left Melbourne with inefficiency and dysfunction.”
To the consternation of local councils keen to host their own mini CBDs, the government is dragging out investor uncertainty by dithering on the announcement of priority mini-CBD precincts. This after going cold on the comprehensive 2015 Plan Melbourne strategy, which recommended “super cities” at now out-of-favour Werribee and Dandenong.
Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan insists it’s all under control: “We’re not the sort of government that wants to sit back and just watch it happen,” she told The Age, telegraphing Spring Street’s preparedness, if required, to offer financial incentives to move things in what it deems “the right direction”.
But Dodson says more is required, suggesting zoning interventions and a more pro-active relocation of education, health and government organisations to clearly-announced mini-CBD precincts. Greater government involvement would reassure Victorians on a number of fronts, not the least of which is housing.
With a $125 billion pricetag, the SRL “is an incredibly expensive way of facilitating concentrated (infill) development,” Dodson told The Age.
Victoria is in a fiscal hole, twice downgraded from a Triple A credit rating, with a looming horror budget expected to slash spending on infrastructure, including the SRL-connected Melbourne Airport Rail.
Early works have already begun on the SRL’s first (south eastern) stage, but these fiscal issues mean the pace at which it proceeds, its eventual completion, and the government’s ability to uplift its services to mini CBDs are now in real doubt. Perhaps that offers an opportunity to explore cheaper, more effective ways of managing Melbourne’s sprawl.
While we’ve focused on three “case studies” above, poorly-regulated and seemingly-unchecked urban sprawl is a feature of major Australian cities from coast to coast. It’s a theme the Fifth Estate will revisit in more granular detail in the weeks ahead, and it begs the question: “Why?”
In all three of the above cases, market forces were given almost free rein to do their thing, largely unencumbered by state Labor governments. The result: “inefficiency and dysfunction” around Melbourne’s SRL, while the lower density housing favoured by Australians has overrun “greenfield” suburbs like Wanneroo (WA) and Hackham (SA), despite experts repeatedly calling for the exact opposite.
If there’s one immutable truth about governments of either hue, it’s that they’re on, let’s say, “friendly”, terms with developers given free rein to “cry havoc and let slip” the single house and land packages. Money and politics are terrible bedfellows, spawning outcomes – from wars to income disparity to the viral spread of suburbia – that benefit only a tiny few.
In the Fifth Estate recently, planning and urban design veteran Mike Brown saw improved urban decision making and resolving our housing affordability crisis as a way of demonstrating “the superiority of democratic governance increasingly under threat from autocracies in our region”.
But if money has compromised our democracy, is “improved decision making” still an option?
Refreshing to see someone covering the atrocity of sprawl, not the professions that operate in urban design though all would silently if not publicly agree with you. Sprawl is the most efficient, expedient and in the short term the most profitable urban extrusion that all of the political parties policies gloss over with motherhood statements perpetuating its spread at great waste. The Greens are timidly against it by motherhood statement, not with active policies, The Libs actively promote it in the name of affordable housing and the economy and Labour conveniently sidestep it with generalisations like housing diversity, best practice etc. The fact of the matter is that all of the professions and political parties other than the libs who promote it aren’t other than in vacuous motherhood statements serious about addressing the waste, infrastructural cost, social isolation, green house consequences etc. They fear the backlash of the vote or being professionally maligned by being enemies of the Australian dream and AU’s economic growth. Aside from the occasional article like yours for every body involved at the pointy end appears to be happy to wear the atrocity of sprawl in the name of their own political and economic vested interests, looking askance lest they erode their voter base or the gravy train their income is based on. If its good enough for the US and Canada whom Australia follows then its good enough for Australia, its not a joke! Congratulations having at least thought about it, however if your text is to have any impact you might challenge the professions and political parties who legislate and participate in perpetrating this wasteful practice. You might take them on and begin by asking them whether they support sprawl, whether its environmentally sustainable, question them on its infrastructural costs, the loss of productivity commuting too and fro…etc…and on the proof of the established alternatives of medium density. Well done, I look forward to your further articles.
thanks for your response Ivan… as always you nail the issue. Agree and yes we need way more articles to point out how crazy this solution is – a lazy one as you say. Yes, we need to ask the right questions. In recent times I’ve started to think we need to treat urban sprawl as we do carbon emissions. Andrew has done a fanstastic job in this piece and we’re keen to see if we can persuade him to do more. We’d love to publish more of your views too.
And we strongly encourage other voices to contribute. the address for Spinifex OpEDs is editorial@thefifthestate.com.au we look for 700+ words (no self promotion)
Professors and those with Masters degrees are not necessarily the the best people to plan. Those whose work is based on practical applications are at least as capable as professors even without a higher degree. The SRL was carefully conceived by a number of capable experienced specialists in their various fields based on evidence such as that obtained from the much maligned Miki card.
Peter, the article wasn’t an attack on the SRL per se, but it did question how effective it can be – in the possible absence of other government action – at facilitating the development of desired, medium-to-high density housing in Melbourne’s “infill” areas.
The SRL’s price tag seems steep, too, as Professor Dodson said, especially if one of its major purposes was to reorient Melbourne’s development (this humble Masters graduate/Ivory Tower alumnus agrees).
More please, wonderful, sanity.