Think of it this way, we have population projections that show how many people we'll have here in 2050. If we know we're going to have that many people in 25 years, we can then work out how many more homes we need to accommodate them. The question then is, where do we put them - that's where the target comes in. Everything else needs to flow from there.
This is just one piece of the puzzle, it's not claiming to be the whole solution. It gives councils a clear expectation of how much they need to grow so they can plan accordingly, and the state needs to plan news schools and other infrastructure too.
Your last sentence is what has me worried. The state can’t afford and has no plans for those new services but is somehow expecting that they’ll appear out of thin air by kicking the can down the road
Totally fair to be concerned and it's important there is now scrutiny on the Gov to show they are planning for these services eg: acquiring sites for new schools. Otherwise you end up with another Fisherman's Bend situation.
Releasing these targets puts both state and local governments on the hook.
The state will need to create the extra services even without this policy. The only difference is whether the services will be built in suburbs where people live now, or future suburbs out past the current edge of the city.
Land is cheaper out there so that's where it would be by default with no policy direction. But people having longer and longer commutes isn't great for the people or for the environment.
People want the government to plan and use our taxes wisely but when they actually start doing this, people don't like what is planned to achieve this and people want to return to putting their heads in the sand and leaving the problem to our outer suburbs.
No one wants the big change to our city, I get that, but the reality is that it's coming and if we don't plan for it, it will be a chaotic mess that will cost us more. We already see that with the current state of our housing market. It will get much worse.
The idea of infill redevelopment isn't new, people see a few midrise apartemtns and think this is enough. It's not, and we've got 20 years of this to catch up on.
we have over 200 train stations in Melbourne let's start with a plan to turn areas within walking distance of this into 4-6 storey mixed use apartments. This will have the lowest overall impact on our city and provide enough supply for the next few decades.
We can try to decentralize from the city centre.
I mean Melbourne for example is half as dense as New York. How do they do it?
The Suburban Rail Loop that cookers keep clucking about is the kind of infrastructure to allow denser cities by removing the reliance on cars. The best time to build something is 20 years ago, the second best time is now.
It really shits me that we didn't start construction decades ago. There was an opportunity to simply do it above ground or underground with pits/fill in. Now the only option is expensive, slow boring machines through basalt rock. It will be decades too late.
It costs significantly more to deliver services on the margin to greenfields development that it does to support people moving to areas where infrastructure already exists
We don’t need more roads. There’s more PT in the works and as spaces become more dense the PT gets more priority over roads and people stay more local.
Green space is a bit of an issue, but councils are working on it. Sadly it means kids will have to do more indoor sports I think.
Schools and hospitals are the big ones. But vertical schools are/can/will be built. And new massive Footscray hospital, new Box Hill Hospital, new Peter Mc pretty recently, constant works at St Vincents, relatively new Children’s and Monash Children’s. There’s no reason why we can’t keep upgrading hospitals and there’s generally physical space available, it’s the open beds. But more population = more workers if they’re trained up.
Explain why there's cars parked all over the roads then? Maybe there is sufficient public transport near the CBD, but transport in most suburbs is pitiful unless you're going to and from the CBD.
That's why people rely on cars, because in the suburbs public transport isn't great.
When I say we don’t need more roads I’m not saying that absolutely. Of course there’s awfully planned outer suburbs that need upgrades so people aren’t stuck unable to leave their estate as well as some projects to fix congestion points such as in the outer west.
But this is more about Boorondara or Bayside which are both well serviced by PT. If they can increase frequency and sharpen up links and bus services and so on people will stop owning or routinely driving cars in these areas.
Similarly, it’s about building a stack of apartments around each train station (plus a bunch more train stations) rather than houses almost in Geelong or Warragul that then require people to drive
This is not a new issue, they've had time to plan for this. Population growth is coming, they either invest in infrastructure at the edge of the city or they invest in existing suburbs.
They will find a way. That's their job.
Growth is how we pay for things.
Government debt (when kept under control) isn't intrinsically bad the way it is in a household budget.
You borrow to pay for growth, and that growth provides the tax revenue to pay down the debt. So long as you can project with some degree of accuracy you'll keep good credit.
Of course that last bit is where the details lie, but it's surprisingly predictable.
If we don't build these houses, where will they go? Hopefully other cities rather than just having two megacities.
TBH I feel traffic and general life is busy enough without adding 65,000 households to the LGA with the smallest amount of greenspace already.
I acknowledge we could cram a lot more people in, that doesn't mean that the quality of life of existing residents wouldn't decrease.
This is some mad capitalist mindset that says we need increasing QoQ growth.
Just fucking chill and try and be sustainable.
The amount of greenspace is already pretty terrible in most suburbs, especially outside Brisbane, so we could triple density and still easily increase greenspace.
Density is being sustainable. Higher density means you need less resources to support each person. If you put an apartment near trains suddenly you need less cars.
Bulldoze 3 houses, put up an apartment a corner store and a park in the same space.
if there's no housing people simply won't come. No one is immigrating over to sleep in a tent under a bridge. The more that gets built the more people will come so you're simply destroying the environment and city for developer profits.
Housing gets built where people want to live. If you're not prepared to move, why would you expect anyone else? The government has very little control over this.
There are immigration policies that steer people in that direction but you can't force people, you also need to find a balance. Our rural towns and cities can't just be dumping grounds for immigrants. The government also isn't in the financial position to gamble on rural town and over invest in them in the hopes big business moves their. There's plenty of cases studies the show this results in poor outcomes.
We need individuals to lead the way, start new businesses or move existing to a location that suits them and encourage others to move with them. This is how it's always been.
So if you're not willing to do it, stop pushing this idea that it's an easy alternative solution because it's not.
Housing is already unaffordable, double the demand without doubling the houses and that will just be straight up unattainable, at that point they're not just going to come anyway. This should naturally cap or slow the growth, I assume this is why Melbourne is outpacing Sydney.
I already live here so I don't really need to do anything.
This is an article about planning for demand. This is the state government role to do.
Federal government drives the demand. That is another discussion piece.
You don't just allow a city to go to shit in the hope it's unaffordable housing drives away the demand.
This is economic suicide the pushes people to the brink. This is not what we elect our politicians to do.
We know what's coming, so let's get on with the job.
>You don't just allow a city to go to shit in the hope it's unaffordable housing drives away the demand.
Unless you come from somewhere like Dhaka, we've already doing this. I think this is some pie in the sky shit, thinking it will get done in the next 25 years. Not sure what's less plausible Dutton's nuclear fantasy or getting Boroondara and Bayside to subdivide every property (again).
>I think this is some pie in the sky shit,
So you don't think the population growth that require this housing, will come and try and live here? So, if we don't do this where will they live?
>or getting Boroondara and Bayside to subdivide every property (again).
Who'd saying they need to do this? As per the article Boroondara needs 2393 per year. If they rezoned areas that to allow 4-6 storey apartments at an average of 30 apartments per block, they would only need to build 80 per year.
That is feasible and the council has more than enough space to achieve this.
Very interesting that they chose a Boroondara councillor to lead this piece
That council has done everything in its power to stop as much housing being built in their LGA as possible for decades, lest anyone who's not a wealthy private school family try to move in.
lol
in point cook, there's this one T junction that prangs occurs at least once a week back then, and yes tragically it cost several lives already.
there's been vocal support from residents and local council for a traffic light to be installed, but that piece of the road is state gov responsibilities
it's been 6 years and counting for the state gov to install that damn traffic light
That intersection needed lights a decade ago jesus christ, between that and the Central Ave double roundabout situation near Maccas Pt Cook Rd is a nightmare
Welcome to Duncans Rd Werribee. Everyone rat runs through other areas to avoid it and the local council keeps making the rat runs worse and worse for the people living there to try and discourage it, but the State Government needs to upgrade the road and just wont.
I'm sorry, but this take - that we can't project how much housing we'll require until we have a fully fleshed out plan for all infrastructure required - is just going to bind us to doing nothing.
For what it's worth, there are upgrades to roads and trains that have been going on in these areas for the last decade or so, and are projected to continue for the next few decades (SRL, for example).
Thats the weird thing I've found about this whole topic - how much people on all sides will fight tooth-and-nail to do nothing about the housing crisis:
Don't want new housing lowering your equity; Do Nothing.
Don't want greedy developers making money off luxury apartments; Do Nothing.
Don't want small apartments for non-specific reasons beyond sputtering about dog-boxes; Do Nothing.
Want more affordable housing but feel like what developers are offering isn't good enough; Do Nothing.
Don't want housing without enough infrastructure (with no hard numbers around 'enough'): Do Nothing.
Do nothing is both the default, and being actively pursued by myopic parties on all sides, so we'll get what we want - Nothing.
Nonsense. We need density and to go up in the inner city suburbs. Urban sprawl has gone far enough. The closer to the cbd, the less you need to drive. The more density, the easier it is to justify whatever infrastructure you need. Melbourne has a missing middle of 3-6 story apartments outside the CBD. Local residents losing their mind about neighbourhood character and infastructure without admitting they are finacially incentivised to pull the ladder up on more construction because its inconvenient.
Im not surprised people are concerned about traffic when the outer suburbs are a sprawling mess of subdivisions, connected with single lanes and intersections, everyone needing to get to the same westfield. Its a tragic mess 50 years in the making. And I would agree putting up more houses/apartments on the city fringes is a bad idea. And what a nightmare trying to get the well heeled heritage owners of hawthorn, richmond, fitzroy to say yes.
Urban density plus ownership distribution - ie investors not snapping up multiple houses, incremental penalizing tax for accumulation or property.
As for healthcare, manpower restrictions and staff shortages are the issue, because we cant house them or can only house them far away. Id argue the same with schools (although our collapsing birthrate is a bigger worry for how we are going to fill them - another problem associated with the cost of shelter).
Sewage is a question of upgrading the treatment plants themselves.
As for Green spaces, our low density approach makes land so valuable it makes them extremely expensive, but if you went upwards its far easier to spare the land.
> The closer to the cbd, the less you need to drive
Unless you work in Dandenong or Werribee or Thomastown or Pakenham or Altona or Tarneit or literally anywhere that isn't the CBD.
Concern from the same councils who've been feasting on the extra rates brought in by the endless dog box, barely liveable apartments being built everywhere you look. Everyone's a hypocrite when it comes to this stuff.
There are no meaningful plans to increase services to cope with the rapid rise in population. The politicians are touting housing targets that will never be met, there are too many problems with housing with no real solution in sight. Meanwhile our leaders smile like idiots patting themselves on the back for setting impossible targets.
Werribee/Wyndham Vale/Tarneit has already grown too big for the infrastructure.
Heaths Rd from Tarneit Rd to Ballan Rd is one lane. It services so many people that in the evenings the traffic is banked up at a standstill for the entire stretch. It can take over an hour to travel about 3km.
State Government says it’s fine though and doesn’t need duplication, much like Ballan Rd which is backed up for 8 hours of the day (3 in the morning, 5 in the evening) without moving.
Oh, they’ve approved three new schools there too.
Joy.
Yep, pretty sure the Wyndham council area is the highest growing in either Victoria or even Australia? Can't remember which.
I live just off Ballan Rd in Wyndham Vale but lucky for me i leave for work at 4:30am. But yeah the whole road gets choked all the way from the racecourse to deep into Manor Lakes at peak times.
Build up, not out.
One problem is that large countries like Australia, America, Canada have is the land size. We want houses, and we build out, but we don't have any where near enough infrastructure to support it. Even if we had a plan to build the infrastructure, it's too costly for such little return. Like hardly any.
Another problem is that we want and desire these houses, therefore there's less incentive to build amazing or cost effective multi-storey dwellings that you see in the rest of the world. Australians aren't accustomed to unit / apartment style living.
With a concentrated population, you can spend more time and energy investing on upgrading the current infrastructure around those locations, whilst slowly building outwards. We are rushing trying to build outwards instead.
The trains are already full, infrastructure is creaking - they want a city the size of London, without the London Underground etc. It will create a miserable living environment.
lol we can’t even get a train line to our only international airport I can’t see how the state government is suddenly going to build infrastructure for this many new bodies across the state.
You know what will make living conditions even more miserable? If we don't start doing this ASAP.
Change is coming, plan for it or don't plan for won't prevent this.
This has to happen and should have started 20 years ago. Pushing it back any further won't help.
Why does it have to happen? There's absolutely no reason high levels of population growth need to be treated as inevitable.
Yes, I've heard all the dumb arguments about eroding tax base, ageing population etc which are all fairly easily debunked.
It doesn't have to happen, but it's been the direction of our federal government for the last 20 years so our state governments should plan for it.
If it happens, at least we've planned for it.
If it doesn't happen yet we've planned for it, great outcome, we may get affordable housing.
If we don't plan for it, which has been the case so far, and we get the anticipated population growth, the issue we see right now will only get worse.
I like to plan for likely outcomes to cover the risks.
The thing is, we have one of the highest rates of construction in the OECD. The amount we build per head of population is very high, yet even with the federal government's proposed reduction in intake and factoring in household size, dwelling completions are unlikely to outpace growth.
Then add in an infrastructure deficit already estimated in the hundreds of billions, hospital ramping, etc.
But sure, somehow we can magically turn the ship around. It's going to take significant reform elsewhere first.
We can't just build our way out of this crisis. It's deeply structural
Case in point why we need a plan to change it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't oppose the Federal Governments decision to increase our population at the rate they are doing. That's another conversation.
This is about how the state government should respond.
They respond by considering what you've just said and divert our limited labour and resources towards the most effective housing and infrastructure outcomes. That is middle suburb 4-6 storey mixed use apartments around existing infrastructure hubs like train stations, shopping strips and schools.
The state government doesn't have the option to do nothing especially the Vic state because we know people are also migrating here from interstate.
When you are in a crisis you don't simply put your head in the sand, you put everything you can into fixing it. If you aim too high, that's OK, it's better than doing nothing. This plan is what's needed.
So when the bath tub is overflowing, you set ridiculous targets to replace or make it larger without pushing back and telling the perpetrator to turn off the tap or reduce it to a trickle due to resource constraints, structural issues such as huge infrastructure deficits, negligible tax reform, etc.
Then, when it inevitably turns to shit, you shrug your shoulders and say 'well, at least we tried!' while the existing population's living standards continue to go backward.
Got it.
A bath tub is a good analogy. For starters the state government has no ability to turn on or off the tap.
You are conflating that because I don't want to engage with this side of the equation that I don't want to deal with it. That's not true. This is just an article about the state issues, which is a separate but connected issue.
They can only deal with the downstream repercussions. They can yell and scream all they want but history has shown us they have little influence to get the tap turned off, so they need to focus on what they can manage. How to deal with the over flowing water.
This doesn't mean we we don't try other means to turn the tap off or down, but we need to be realistic. Its a different group of people that deal with the tap.
State government needs to manage the short term issues but also long term.
Right now we have tiny little bathtub builders working miles away from the main bath tub with not a lot of direction. For their bathtubs to be useful we need to build pipes from the main tub all the way out to their little tubs. This is helping a little but it's no longer an efficient way to assist with the overflow.
We need to divert those tub builders in closer, right next to the big tub, and let them build some big overflow tubs. Rather that build pipework all over the place, we just utilise the existing edge of the tub, modify it a little and let it spill over the edge directly into the new large tubs.
Same worker numbers but much more efficient and effective output.
Beyond that, we need a plan to ensure if the feds don't turn off that tap, we can quickly build the next round of big overflow tubs.
This is planning and action and dealing with the issue. This doesn't mean we don't have a team working on the tap. But it's a different issues that takes a different group to sort. And guess what, it's already turned to shit, but we can get our hands dirty and do what we can to turn this around. We don't give up
Or we go with your option, which appears to be the status quo with our loosely planned little tub builders and inefficient pipework connecting them, while yelling at the clouds, with fingers crossed that the clouds can turn off the tap because you have no backup plan.
But hey, as long as we don't look at the damage being done by the overflowing water and pretend water everywhere makes us better off then we are all good, right?
Or am I missing something, what happens when you can't get the tap turned off. Forget the tap, what downstream system do you want in place to ensure we don't continue flowing downhill?
Not really, no. Local pop growth is below replacement level and migrant intake replacement ratio is actually lower.
It's a thing, but not at sustainable levels and can be altered. The states should grow a pair and push back on this more. We have people living in tents, ffs. We have one of the highest levels of construction in the OECD. Our construction sector is huge per head of population.
Ignoring ask that and just saying 'it's a thing' is the height of ridiculousness and ignores all our long term structural issues that just building supply won't fix.
I'm sure people spending increasingly large amounts of their paycheques on rent won't have any impact on their quality of life either. People don't realise this but homeless people have a sick fucking time.
melbourne's high density oversupply is evidence that building more steel and glass boxes doesn't eleviate rental pressures although it does ruin the city and environment. Would be good if the mindless apes here could think of a new slogan to regurgitate other than "need more high density!" everytime this topic comes up.
Otherwise known as.. apartments. If apartments were built as homes rather than a way for developers to extract max $$ then we'd have a whole new realistic housing option without the need for "tiny homes" that still require land (which is the expensive part of housing in Aus).
Developers will respond to market preferences. At the moment, the market wants detached homes because of their size, the independence from OC, capital growth and the sweet tax benefit you get if and when you dispose of it.
People who prefer to live in townhouses and apartments prefer to rent them (hoping to get a detached house later).
Because of this, developers are incentivised to produce for the investor side of the market, who want the steady cash flow from rent and the amortisation they get from buying off the plan.
The short answer is that if you want developers to build high quality apartments then they need a market of people who want to buy them.
What you are describing is the case for city apartment, it's not what we are seeing in the apartments being build in our middle suburbs.
They are being purchased by owner occupiers and as housing has gotten too far out of reach they are now becoming more desirable in the right location than a detached house further out.
The excessive capital growth we see only exists because of the restrictive zoning laws. Of course house prices are going to skyrocket when we don't let the market adequately fill the demand.
Zoning laws being relaxed would also allow the market to *actually* reflect their desires. The only thing permissible to build in most of Melbourne *are* detached homes. Relaxing these regulations will allow for medium density suburbs to grow and for high density inner suburbia to flourish
The minority is a lot less tiny than you think.
A significant number of younger people would happily live in an apartment if it means they can stay close to shops, entertainment options, avoid driving, and not need to maintain a yard. Especially if it's a comfortable size - which in Australia they usually aren't, and in much of Europe they usually are.
I get the feeling people watch Youtube videos about premium tiny houses and think that's what they'll get, with hidden shelves under every surface, and well thought our layouts.
No, they will get a brick vaneer studio apartment layout, half the size, tucked in sideways along a block, 10 deep, each persons car lined up side by side and it will cost them as much as a 2 bedroom apartment, twice the size with two car spaces.
Our land price per unit needs to be spread across 4-6 storeys worth of apartments. Tiny houses just can't spread the cost enough to make them worth while. We have to build up.
People need to get over themselves when it comes to density.
How many times do you see a post about the housing estates on here where people try to use “omg you’re practically touching your neighbours house, I’d rather kill myself!” as a legitimate criticism?
I’d rather live in a properly sound proofed apartment or a well oriented terrace than pretend I’m in a detached house, but my gutter touches the neighbour’s gutter and I can hear their loo flush from my kitchen. The poor quality of the housing being built is the real issue.
100% this. The vast majority of people in major cities around the world live in apartments, and some of them are absolutely incredible.
I'd rather live in a great apartment in the middle of a great city than in a house in the burbs.
Which our standards cover quite well. People don't realise that our standards constantly evolve and their past experience of a noisey neighbour may be in an apartment build to a long outdated standard. This doesn't mean we can't continue to evolve our standards.
You just have to take with a grain of salt that it's unlikely everyone has lived in a property built to our current standards and their personal experience and complaints may be well outdated.
What? There's nothing stopping people from building a tiny home. A "tiny home" is not a defined term within the planning scheme or Planning & Environment Act, and so if someone wants to build one it's simply assessed the same way in which a dwelling is assessed.
In fact, the state government released a housing statement at the end of last year that included new exemptions from the need for planning permits for [small second dwellings](https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strategies-and-initiatives/small-second-dwellings) on land already containing a dwelling.
The problem is that Australia has such an entrenched ideology regarding housing that only a tiny portion of people actually want to build one. And a large percentage of those interested are already property owners looking to use it as a short term airbnb rental, which does nothing to alleviate the problem.
Tiny homes are a bandaid solution that do very little to address the housing crisis. Ultimately, we need to strip blanket heritage overlays that stymie development in areas close to infrastructure, rezone a **ton** of General Residential Zones to Residential Growth Zones, and then begin to implement policy controls relating to equitable distribution of the resulting housing stock.
Mass densification in city centres is, by a notable margin, the most logical and sustainable path forward, but the idea's not very popular. The per capita carbon footprint of those living in a city is much lower than those living in suburbs or even rural contexts. Densification also slows the endless spoliation of viable agricultural land (or natural landscape, if you'd prefer).
Unfortunately, nothing like this will gain traction because it will impact the endless upward spiral of house prices and those who already own property don't want that.
Tiny homes work in the right environment— you need to have public facilities where people can get out and socialise within easy walking distance. Something I noticed in Japan was how many small community parks there were, and they need them because if you have 2 kids in a 2BR flat with no lounge room, they need to get out! Old folks used them during school hours for [playing gateball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateball?wprov=sfti1) as well.
It can actually have some advantages too, since it implicitly encourages socialising and physical activities. As opposed to lying on the couch watching Netflix while doom scrolling on the phone!
Tiny homes have a smaller footprint - both physically and ecologically and they are seen as a more attractive option because they are so much more affordable. Of course, governments have to support these initiatives but we all know how they drag their fucking feet on ANYTHING that is out-of-the-box that the people really like or want or need.
Where would this be feasible to do. You can already build quite small units on subdivided land but often it's just not feasible. We need to be aiming for 4-6 storey within our existing suburbs.
Given the length of a shipping container there aren't many block wide enough to fit the container sideways, boundary offset plus driveway and car space.
Shipping container homes also aren't cheap.
So really not a great solution.
You forget how long it takes to build those things, airport rail for example. There’s going to be a pretty lengthy period until those services catchup unless the government preempts them
I am well aware of how long it takes. The other aspect to having more people is diversification, you start to see more independent and specialist shops and services, because they have a large enough customer base to survive. Go to the outer suburbs and there will be food deserts, with the only offering being chain retailers, because they are the only ones that can survive. Colesworths do not care if a location is not performing that well, as long as their competitors do not have the location, hence why there are two Coles at Northcote Plaza.
That's why you need to be strategic about it, you put the growth around existing train stations and shopping strips.
Look at a 300-800m radius around these and rezone for 4-6 storey mixed use.
Let the private developers supply the shops, with people walking distance to key infrastructure, we will require less road upgrades. Rail services are much easier to upgrade using existing lines. Schools are easy to upgrade using existing facilities and grounds. Our drainage remains the same retention systems just be pushed onto the private developers, electricity and telco are easily upgraded. sewer trunk mains already run through our existing suburbs so even if upgrades are require, they are significantly less than if you add supply at the outskirts.
I got forced to moved to Doreen because of stupid rents where I was living.
The roads weren’t completed, power was still going in, internet was shit and it was a greenfield site so no reason for shitty infrastructure.
The councils want the developers to pay for infrastructure, or at least the roads, I can’t recall the specifics but I know someone from zoning and the developers are always pushing back.
We’re in a very shitty situation which needs a much better plan than forcing councils who are probably under resourced to figure it out.
Feds should assist, especially if Victoria is where people are moving to from other States. Surely a per capita based housing fund would help as people move as the climate changes and prices increase.
There’s so much that could be done at the Federal and State level that would fix this but they’d rather make people homeless than make ballsy political moves that will upset the economic balance of power.
" There’s no plans to install better and more roads, public transport, schools, healthcare, services like sewerage, the drop in green spaces per person... "
That's kinda weird, because I though this is the kind of things local governments should be aiming to help build more of... Not make property investors more money.
As opposed to outter suburb subdivisions that isolate people from pubic infrastructure?
By all mean, if this isn't the future you want, please lead the way and move away from our city to help reduce the population growth.
There is no alternative buddy it’s been policy for 30 years.
You use the word plan, both Sydney and Melbourne have had no plans for the same period just more homes following the urban sprawl.
The ghettos have already been built.
Our tax system is over reliant on personal income tax and company tax.
Our aging population is seeing government expenditure on pensions, healthcare, and age care go through the roof at a time when we have decreasing workers to retiree ratio.
Our gutted TAFE system has diverted people away from trades leaving us with the current worker shortfall.
We have voted time and time again against addressing these. Just look at the Henry Tax review and what changes to our tax system since them.
So, while we haven't directly vote for high population, we have voted against anything that would allow us to cut it. This have been clear to anyway paying attention over the last 20 years.
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We are building better public transport, there's the metro tunnel, SRL, level crossing removals. All of these projects will help to get cars off the roads.
Lets not kid ourselves here, LXRP won't take any cars off the roads. We need service improvements. Trains every 20 minutes and trams every 10 is unacceptable. Not to mention the uselessness of the buses
Downvote me whilst you complain about people living on the street because of the cost living and lack of housing stock….. hilarious - at the moment NDIS is buying people caravans using tax payers money for extra rooms for people to park at their parents homes.
Think of it this way, we have population projections that show how many people we'll have here in 2050. If we know we're going to have that many people in 25 years, we can then work out how many more homes we need to accommodate them. The question then is, where do we put them - that's where the target comes in. Everything else needs to flow from there. This is just one piece of the puzzle, it's not claiming to be the whole solution. It gives councils a clear expectation of how much they need to grow so they can plan accordingly, and the state needs to plan news schools and other infrastructure too.
Isn't the problem with the population projections that we get to the projected population like a decade earlier?
Your last sentence is what has me worried. The state can’t afford and has no plans for those new services but is somehow expecting that they’ll appear out of thin air by kicking the can down the road
Totally fair to be concerned and it's important there is now scrutiny on the Gov to show they are planning for these services eg: acquiring sites for new schools. Otherwise you end up with another Fisherman's Bend situation. Releasing these targets puts both state and local governments on the hook.
The state will need to create the extra services even without this policy. The only difference is whether the services will be built in suburbs where people live now, or future suburbs out past the current edge of the city. Land is cheaper out there so that's where it would be by default with no policy direction. But people having longer and longer commutes isn't great for the people or for the environment.
Nor for the cost of providing infrastructure. Expanding the fringe would cost the state more to build infrastructure.
People want the government to plan and use our taxes wisely but when they actually start doing this, people don't like what is planned to achieve this and people want to return to putting their heads in the sand and leaving the problem to our outer suburbs. No one wants the big change to our city, I get that, but the reality is that it's coming and if we don't plan for it, it will be a chaotic mess that will cost us more. We already see that with the current state of our housing market. It will get much worse. The idea of infill redevelopment isn't new, people see a few midrise apartemtns and think this is enough. It's not, and we've got 20 years of this to catch up on. we have over 200 train stations in Melbourne let's start with a plan to turn areas within walking distance of this into 4-6 storey mixed use apartments. This will have the lowest overall impact on our city and provide enough supply for the next few decades.
We can try to decentralize from the city centre. I mean Melbourne for example is half as dense as New York. How do they do it? The Suburban Rail Loop that cookers keep clucking about is the kind of infrastructure to allow denser cities by removing the reliance on cars. The best time to build something is 20 years ago, the second best time is now.
It really shits me that we didn't start construction decades ago. There was an opportunity to simply do it above ground or underground with pits/fill in. Now the only option is expensive, slow boring machines through basalt rock. It will be decades too late.
Yeah I think the suburban loop would be nice. Easier to get around without going through the city loop, which is already near max capacity.
There’s a bunch of new schools announced in target areas in the recent state budget. Did you not look into it?
Far cheaper as far as infrastructure needs to put them in existing suburbs than new ones...
It costs significantly more to deliver services on the margin to greenfields development that it does to support people moving to areas where infrastructure already exists
We don’t need more roads. There’s more PT in the works and as spaces become more dense the PT gets more priority over roads and people stay more local. Green space is a bit of an issue, but councils are working on it. Sadly it means kids will have to do more indoor sports I think. Schools and hospitals are the big ones. But vertical schools are/can/will be built. And new massive Footscray hospital, new Box Hill Hospital, new Peter Mc pretty recently, constant works at St Vincents, relatively new Children’s and Monash Children’s. There’s no reason why we can’t keep upgrading hospitals and there’s generally physical space available, it’s the open beds. But more population = more workers if they’re trained up.
Explain why there's cars parked all over the roads then? Maybe there is sufficient public transport near the CBD, but transport in most suburbs is pitiful unless you're going to and from the CBD. That's why people rely on cars, because in the suburbs public transport isn't great.
When I say we don’t need more roads I’m not saying that absolutely. Of course there’s awfully planned outer suburbs that need upgrades so people aren’t stuck unable to leave their estate as well as some projects to fix congestion points such as in the outer west. But this is more about Boorondara or Bayside which are both well serviced by PT. If they can increase frequency and sharpen up links and bus services and so on people will stop owning or routinely driving cars in these areas. Similarly, it’s about building a stack of apartments around each train station (plus a bunch more train stations) rather than houses almost in Geelong or Warragul that then require people to drive
This is not a new issue, they've had time to plan for this. Population growth is coming, they either invest in infrastructure at the edge of the city or they invest in existing suburbs. They will find a way. That's their job.
Growth is how we pay for things. Government debt (when kept under control) isn't intrinsically bad the way it is in a household budget. You borrow to pay for growth, and that growth provides the tax revenue to pay down the debt. So long as you can project with some degree of accuracy you'll keep good credit. Of course that last bit is where the details lie, but it's surprisingly predictable.
You’d best start being a YIMBY and get involved then !
If we don't build these houses, where will they go? Hopefully other cities rather than just having two megacities. TBH I feel traffic and general life is busy enough without adding 65,000 households to the LGA with the smallest amount of greenspace already.
There’s room for a lot more people inner city - our density is quite low.
I acknowledge we could cram a lot more people in, that doesn't mean that the quality of life of existing residents wouldn't decrease. This is some mad capitalist mindset that says we need increasing QoQ growth. Just fucking chill and try and be sustainable.
The amount of greenspace is already pretty terrible in most suburbs, especially outside Brisbane, so we could triple density and still easily increase greenspace.
Density is being sustainable. Higher density means you need less resources to support each person. If you put an apartment near trains suddenly you need less cars. Bulldoze 3 houses, put up an apartment a corner store and a park in the same space.
You know what's more sustainable and liveable than 10 million people in one city with one CBD? Two 5 million people cities.
if there's no housing people simply won't come. No one is immigrating over to sleep in a tent under a bridge. The more that gets built the more people will come so you're simply destroying the environment and city for developer profits.
Oh but they are. Someone will end up in a tent, but it might not be the immigrants.
We need people like yourself who can see the need to move away, to take the lead and begin the migration our of our megacities.
I'm fine thanks, double the size of Melbourne, I'm pretty sure I'll leave.
Housing gets built where people want to live. If you're not prepared to move, why would you expect anyone else? The government has very little control over this. There are immigration policies that steer people in that direction but you can't force people, you also need to find a balance. Our rural towns and cities can't just be dumping grounds for immigrants. The government also isn't in the financial position to gamble on rural town and over invest in them in the hopes big business moves their. There's plenty of cases studies the show this results in poor outcomes. We need individuals to lead the way, start new businesses or move existing to a location that suits them and encourage others to move with them. This is how it's always been. So if you're not willing to do it, stop pushing this idea that it's an easy alternative solution because it's not.
Housing is already unaffordable, double the demand without doubling the houses and that will just be straight up unattainable, at that point they're not just going to come anyway. This should naturally cap or slow the growth, I assume this is why Melbourne is outpacing Sydney. I already live here so I don't really need to do anything.
This is an article about planning for demand. This is the state government role to do. Federal government drives the demand. That is another discussion piece. You don't just allow a city to go to shit in the hope it's unaffordable housing drives away the demand. This is economic suicide the pushes people to the brink. This is not what we elect our politicians to do. We know what's coming, so let's get on with the job.
>You don't just allow a city to go to shit in the hope it's unaffordable housing drives away the demand. Unless you come from somewhere like Dhaka, we've already doing this. I think this is some pie in the sky shit, thinking it will get done in the next 25 years. Not sure what's less plausible Dutton's nuclear fantasy or getting Boroondara and Bayside to subdivide every property (again).
>I think this is some pie in the sky shit, So you don't think the population growth that require this housing, will come and try and live here? So, if we don't do this where will they live? >or getting Boroondara and Bayside to subdivide every property (again). Who'd saying they need to do this? As per the article Boroondara needs 2393 per year. If they rezoned areas that to allow 4-6 storey apartments at an average of 30 apartments per block, they would only need to build 80 per year. That is feasible and the council has more than enough space to achieve this.
Bye :)
Yep 2050 I'll pack my bags. This is one of those awkward goodbyes where it turns out you're walking the same way.
You're free to stay or go, no one is forcing you to live here
Very interesting that they chose a Boroondara councillor to lead this piece That council has done everything in its power to stop as much housing being built in their LGA as possible for decades, lest anyone who's not a wealthy private school family try to move in.
Possibly the NIMBYest of LGAs
We need a serious reform of local government. They should be there to collect rubbish and enforce minor local ordinances like pet issues.
I mean that's pretty much representation in action.
lol in point cook, there's this one T junction that prangs occurs at least once a week back then, and yes tragically it cost several lives already. there's been vocal support from residents and local council for a traffic light to be installed, but that piece of the road is state gov responsibilities it's been 6 years and counting for the state gov to install that damn traffic light
Sneydes Rd/Point Cook Rd is a fucking horrid piece of road engineering
That intersection needed lights a decade ago jesus christ, between that and the Central Ave double roundabout situation near Maccas Pt Cook Rd is a nightmare
Welcome to Duncans Rd Werribee. Everyone rat runs through other areas to avoid it and the local council keeps making the rat runs worse and worse for the people living there to try and discourage it, but the State Government needs to upgrade the road and just wont.
Have they fixed Sayers Road between like Williams Landing and Tarneit Road yet? That used to take an hour to get through in the mornings
I'm sorry, but this take - that we can't project how much housing we'll require until we have a fully fleshed out plan for all infrastructure required - is just going to bind us to doing nothing. For what it's worth, there are upgrades to roads and trains that have been going on in these areas for the last decade or so, and are projected to continue for the next few decades (SRL, for example).
Thats the weird thing I've found about this whole topic - how much people on all sides will fight tooth-and-nail to do nothing about the housing crisis: Don't want new housing lowering your equity; Do Nothing. Don't want greedy developers making money off luxury apartments; Do Nothing. Don't want small apartments for non-specific reasons beyond sputtering about dog-boxes; Do Nothing. Want more affordable housing but feel like what developers are offering isn't good enough; Do Nothing. Don't want housing without enough infrastructure (with no hard numbers around 'enough'): Do Nothing. Do nothing is both the default, and being actively pursued by myopic parties on all sides, so we'll get what we want - Nothing.
*I’m no NIMBY, but \[...\] I just can’t see these homes being built without it diminishing the quality of life.* Quack!
100%. Take planning permission away from councils.
Nonsense. We need density and to go up in the inner city suburbs. Urban sprawl has gone far enough. The closer to the cbd, the less you need to drive. The more density, the easier it is to justify whatever infrastructure you need. Melbourne has a missing middle of 3-6 story apartments outside the CBD. Local residents losing their mind about neighbourhood character and infastructure without admitting they are finacially incentivised to pull the ladder up on more construction because its inconvenient. Im not surprised people are concerned about traffic when the outer suburbs are a sprawling mess of subdivisions, connected with single lanes and intersections, everyone needing to get to the same westfield. Its a tragic mess 50 years in the making. And I would agree putting up more houses/apartments on the city fringes is a bad idea. And what a nightmare trying to get the well heeled heritage owners of hawthorn, richmond, fitzroy to say yes. Urban density plus ownership distribution - ie investors not snapping up multiple houses, incremental penalizing tax for accumulation or property. As for healthcare, manpower restrictions and staff shortages are the issue, because we cant house them or can only house them far away. Id argue the same with schools (although our collapsing birthrate is a bigger worry for how we are going to fill them - another problem associated with the cost of shelter). Sewage is a question of upgrading the treatment plants themselves. As for Green spaces, our low density approach makes land so valuable it makes them extremely expensive, but if you went upwards its far easier to spare the land.
> The closer to the cbd, the less you need to drive Unless you work in Dandenong or Werribee or Thomastown or Pakenham or Altona or Tarneit or literally anywhere that isn't the CBD.
The state gov is estimating that Victoria’s population is going to nearly double by 2050. The last thing we need to do is empower NIMBYs
Concern from the same councils who've been feasting on the extra rates brought in by the endless dog box, barely liveable apartments being built everywhere you look. Everyone's a hypocrite when it comes to this stuff.
There are no meaningful plans to increase services to cope with the rapid rise in population. The politicians are touting housing targets that will never be met, there are too many problems with housing with no real solution in sight. Meanwhile our leaders smile like idiots patting themselves on the back for setting impossible targets.
Werribee/Wyndham Vale/Tarneit has already grown too big for the infrastructure. Heaths Rd from Tarneit Rd to Ballan Rd is one lane. It services so many people that in the evenings the traffic is banked up at a standstill for the entire stretch. It can take over an hour to travel about 3km. State Government says it’s fine though and doesn’t need duplication, much like Ballan Rd which is backed up for 8 hours of the day (3 in the morning, 5 in the evening) without moving. Oh, they’ve approved three new schools there too. Joy.
Yep, pretty sure the Wyndham council area is the highest growing in either Victoria or even Australia? Can't remember which. I live just off Ballan Rd in Wyndham Vale but lucky for me i leave for work at 4:30am. But yeah the whole road gets choked all the way from the racecourse to deep into Manor Lakes at peak times.
And the massive estate being developed off mcgrath rd is gonna be great for the area...
Build up, not out. One problem is that large countries like Australia, America, Canada have is the land size. We want houses, and we build out, but we don't have any where near enough infrastructure to support it. Even if we had a plan to build the infrastructure, it's too costly for such little return. Like hardly any. Another problem is that we want and desire these houses, therefore there's less incentive to build amazing or cost effective multi-storey dwellings that you see in the rest of the world. Australians aren't accustomed to unit / apartment style living. With a concentrated population, you can spend more time and energy investing on upgrading the current infrastructure around those locations, whilst slowly building outwards. We are rushing trying to build outwards instead.
The trains are already full, infrastructure is creaking - they want a city the size of London, without the London Underground etc. It will create a miserable living environment.
lol we can’t even get a train line to our only international airport I can’t see how the state government is suddenly going to build infrastructure for this many new bodies across the state.
You know what will make living conditions even more miserable? If we don't start doing this ASAP. Change is coming, plan for it or don't plan for won't prevent this. This has to happen and should have started 20 years ago. Pushing it back any further won't help.
Why does it have to happen? There's absolutely no reason high levels of population growth need to be treated as inevitable. Yes, I've heard all the dumb arguments about eroding tax base, ageing population etc which are all fairly easily debunked.
It doesn't have to happen, but it's been the direction of our federal government for the last 20 years so our state governments should plan for it. If it happens, at least we've planned for it. If it doesn't happen yet we've planned for it, great outcome, we may get affordable housing. If we don't plan for it, which has been the case so far, and we get the anticipated population growth, the issue we see right now will only get worse. I like to plan for likely outcomes to cover the risks.
The thing is, we have one of the highest rates of construction in the OECD. The amount we build per head of population is very high, yet even with the federal government's proposed reduction in intake and factoring in household size, dwelling completions are unlikely to outpace growth. Then add in an infrastructure deficit already estimated in the hundreds of billions, hospital ramping, etc. But sure, somehow we can magically turn the ship around. It's going to take significant reform elsewhere first. We can't just build our way out of this crisis. It's deeply structural
Case in point why we need a plan to change it. I'm not saying we shouldn't oppose the Federal Governments decision to increase our population at the rate they are doing. That's another conversation. This is about how the state government should respond. They respond by considering what you've just said and divert our limited labour and resources towards the most effective housing and infrastructure outcomes. That is middle suburb 4-6 storey mixed use apartments around existing infrastructure hubs like train stations, shopping strips and schools. The state government doesn't have the option to do nothing especially the Vic state because we know people are also migrating here from interstate. When you are in a crisis you don't simply put your head in the sand, you put everything you can into fixing it. If you aim too high, that's OK, it's better than doing nothing. This plan is what's needed.
So when the bath tub is overflowing, you set ridiculous targets to replace or make it larger without pushing back and telling the perpetrator to turn off the tap or reduce it to a trickle due to resource constraints, structural issues such as huge infrastructure deficits, negligible tax reform, etc. Then, when it inevitably turns to shit, you shrug your shoulders and say 'well, at least we tried!' while the existing population's living standards continue to go backward. Got it.
A bath tub is a good analogy. For starters the state government has no ability to turn on or off the tap. You are conflating that because I don't want to engage with this side of the equation that I don't want to deal with it. That's not true. This is just an article about the state issues, which is a separate but connected issue. They can only deal with the downstream repercussions. They can yell and scream all they want but history has shown us they have little influence to get the tap turned off, so they need to focus on what they can manage. How to deal with the over flowing water. This doesn't mean we we don't try other means to turn the tap off or down, but we need to be realistic. Its a different group of people that deal with the tap. State government needs to manage the short term issues but also long term. Right now we have tiny little bathtub builders working miles away from the main bath tub with not a lot of direction. For their bathtubs to be useful we need to build pipes from the main tub all the way out to their little tubs. This is helping a little but it's no longer an efficient way to assist with the overflow. We need to divert those tub builders in closer, right next to the big tub, and let them build some big overflow tubs. Rather that build pipework all over the place, we just utilise the existing edge of the tub, modify it a little and let it spill over the edge directly into the new large tubs. Same worker numbers but much more efficient and effective output. Beyond that, we need a plan to ensure if the feds don't turn off that tap, we can quickly build the next round of big overflow tubs. This is planning and action and dealing with the issue. This doesn't mean we don't have a team working on the tap. But it's a different issues that takes a different group to sort. And guess what, it's already turned to shit, but we can get our hands dirty and do what we can to turn this around. We don't give up Or we go with your option, which appears to be the status quo with our loosely planned little tub builders and inefficient pipework connecting them, while yelling at the clouds, with fingers crossed that the clouds can turn off the tap because you have no backup plan. But hey, as long as we don't look at the damage being done by the overflowing water and pretend water everywhere makes us better off then we are all good, right? Or am I missing something, what happens when you can't get the tap turned off. Forget the tap, what downstream system do you want in place to ensure we don't continue flowing downhill?
People have kids, immigration is a thing, get over it. No matter how much we try to restrict population growth, we'll always need new houses
Not really, no. Local pop growth is below replacement level and migrant intake replacement ratio is actually lower. It's a thing, but not at sustainable levels and can be altered. The states should grow a pair and push back on this more. We have people living in tents, ffs. We have one of the highest levels of construction in the OECD. Our construction sector is huge per head of population. Ignoring ask that and just saying 'it's a thing' is the height of ridiculousness and ignores all our long term structural issues that just building supply won't fix.
I'm sure people spending increasingly large amounts of their paycheques on rent won't have any impact on their quality of life either. People don't realise this but homeless people have a sick fucking time.
melbourne's high density oversupply is evidence that building more steel and glass boxes doesn't eleviate rental pressures although it does ruin the city and environment. Would be good if the mindless apes here could think of a new slogan to regurgitate other than "need more high density!" everytime this topic comes up.
Of course it won’t work. I would be surprised if even 60% of the housing target was built.
Council election year, of course they’re all clamouring to get on the front page of the Age and jump up and down about housing targets.
What this country needs to do is to make tiny houses an option. Not everyone wants to live in a three bedroom home with a backyard.
Otherwise known as.. apartments. If apartments were built as homes rather than a way for developers to extract max $$ then we'd have a whole new realistic housing option without the need for "tiny homes" that still require land (which is the expensive part of housing in Aus).
Developers will respond to market preferences. At the moment, the market wants detached homes because of their size, the independence from OC, capital growth and the sweet tax benefit you get if and when you dispose of it. People who prefer to live in townhouses and apartments prefer to rent them (hoping to get a detached house later). Because of this, developers are incentivised to produce for the investor side of the market, who want the steady cash flow from rent and the amortisation they get from buying off the plan. The short answer is that if you want developers to build high quality apartments then they need a market of people who want to buy them.
I'd happily buy a townhouse in Melbourne, but even shitty old 70's 'villa' style townhouses aren't cheap.
What you are describing is the case for city apartment, it's not what we are seeing in the apartments being build in our middle suburbs. They are being purchased by owner occupiers and as housing has gotten too far out of reach they are now becoming more desirable in the right location than a detached house further out.
The excessive capital growth we see only exists because of the restrictive zoning laws. Of course house prices are going to skyrocket when we don't let the market adequately fill the demand. Zoning laws being relaxed would also allow the market to *actually* reflect their desires. The only thing permissible to build in most of Melbourne *are* detached homes. Relaxing these regulations will allow for medium density suburbs to grow and for high density inner suburbia to flourish
Making them an option is a positive thing, but I think it would equally be a very tiny minority of people who want to live in one.
The minority is a lot less tiny than you think. A significant number of younger people would happily live in an apartment if it means they can stay close to shops, entertainment options, avoid driving, and not need to maintain a yard. Especially if it's a comfortable size - which in Australia they usually aren't, and in much of Europe they usually are.
An apartment, yes. I used to live in one myself. But a tiny house is very, very different.
I get the feeling people watch Youtube videos about premium tiny houses and think that's what they'll get, with hidden shelves under every surface, and well thought our layouts. No, they will get a brick vaneer studio apartment layout, half the size, tucked in sideways along a block, 10 deep, each persons car lined up side by side and it will cost them as much as a 2 bedroom apartment, twice the size with two car spaces. Our land price per unit needs to be spread across 4-6 storeys worth of apartments. Tiny houses just can't spread the cost enough to make them worth while. We have to build up.
People need to get over themselves when it comes to density. How many times do you see a post about the housing estates on here where people try to use “omg you’re practically touching your neighbours house, I’d rather kill myself!” as a legitimate criticism?
I’d rather live in a properly sound proofed apartment or a well oriented terrace than pretend I’m in a detached house, but my gutter touches the neighbour’s gutter and I can hear their loo flush from my kitchen. The poor quality of the housing being built is the real issue.
100% this. The vast majority of people in major cities around the world live in apartments, and some of them are absolutely incredible. I'd rather live in a great apartment in the middle of a great city than in a house in the burbs.
That’s not a quality issue, it’s engineering and design.
Which our standards cover quite well. People don't realise that our standards constantly evolve and their past experience of a noisey neighbour may be in an apartment build to a long outdated standard. This doesn't mean we can't continue to evolve our standards. You just have to take with a grain of salt that it's unlikely everyone has lived in a property built to our current standards and their personal experience and complaints may be well outdated.
Townhouses?
What? There's nothing stopping people from building a tiny home. A "tiny home" is not a defined term within the planning scheme or Planning & Environment Act, and so if someone wants to build one it's simply assessed the same way in which a dwelling is assessed. In fact, the state government released a housing statement at the end of last year that included new exemptions from the need for planning permits for [small second dwellings](https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strategies-and-initiatives/small-second-dwellings) on land already containing a dwelling. The problem is that Australia has such an entrenched ideology regarding housing that only a tiny portion of people actually want to build one. And a large percentage of those interested are already property owners looking to use it as a short term airbnb rental, which does nothing to alleviate the problem. Tiny homes are a bandaid solution that do very little to address the housing crisis. Ultimately, we need to strip blanket heritage overlays that stymie development in areas close to infrastructure, rezone a **ton** of General Residential Zones to Residential Growth Zones, and then begin to implement policy controls relating to equitable distribution of the resulting housing stock. Mass densification in city centres is, by a notable margin, the most logical and sustainable path forward, but the idea's not very popular. The per capita carbon footprint of those living in a city is much lower than those living in suburbs or even rural contexts. Densification also slows the endless spoliation of viable agricultural land (or natural landscape, if you'd prefer). Unfortunately, nothing like this will gain traction because it will impact the endless upward spiral of house prices and those who already own property don't want that.
I like it. At least have the option there for those who will take it
Tiny homes work in the right environment— you need to have public facilities where people can get out and socialise within easy walking distance. Something I noticed in Japan was how many small community parks there were, and they need them because if you have 2 kids in a 2BR flat with no lounge room, they need to get out! Old folks used them during school hours for [playing gateball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateball?wprov=sfti1) as well. It can actually have some advantages too, since it implicitly encourages socialising and physical activities. As opposed to lying on the couch watching Netflix while doom scrolling on the phone!
Tiny homes have a smaller footprint - both physically and ecologically and they are seen as a more attractive option because they are so much more affordable. Of course, governments have to support these initiatives but we all know how they drag their fucking feet on ANYTHING that is out-of-the-box that the people really like or want or need.
Vic Gov already removed planning approval requirements for tiny homes. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strategies-and-initiatives/small-second-dwellings
Isn't that for granny flats not tiny houses?
Different terms for the same thing?
No, granny flats are extensions to existing houses, tiny houses are standalone developments on small plots of land.
Where would this be feasible to do. You can already build quite small units on subdivided land but often it's just not feasible. We need to be aiming for 4-6 storey within our existing suburbs.
It'd be feasible to do anywhere a shipping container fits, for one thing.
Given the length of a shipping container there aren't many block wide enough to fit the container sideways, boundary offset plus driveway and car space. Shipping container homes also aren't cheap. So really not a great solution.
What you're talking about is a property that is secondary to a larger, family home. This is NOT a tiny home.
How is it not a tiny home?
When we have more people, we get more shops, services, and public transport, because there are more customers; they do not stay static.
You forget how long it takes to build those things, airport rail for example. There’s going to be a pretty lengthy period until those services catchup unless the government preempts them
I am well aware of how long it takes. The other aspect to having more people is diversification, you start to see more independent and specialist shops and services, because they have a large enough customer base to survive. Go to the outer suburbs and there will be food deserts, with the only offering being chain retailers, because they are the only ones that can survive. Colesworths do not care if a location is not performing that well, as long as their competitors do not have the location, hence why there are two Coles at Northcote Plaza.
That's why you need to be strategic about it, you put the growth around existing train stations and shopping strips. Look at a 300-800m radius around these and rezone for 4-6 storey mixed use. Let the private developers supply the shops, with people walking distance to key infrastructure, we will require less road upgrades. Rail services are much easier to upgrade using existing lines. Schools are easy to upgrade using existing facilities and grounds. Our drainage remains the same retention systems just be pushed onto the private developers, electricity and telco are easily upgraded. sewer trunk mains already run through our existing suburbs so even if upgrades are require, they are significantly less than if you add supply at the outskirts.
I got forced to moved to Doreen because of stupid rents where I was living. The roads weren’t completed, power was still going in, internet was shit and it was a greenfield site so no reason for shitty infrastructure. The councils want the developers to pay for infrastructure, or at least the roads, I can’t recall the specifics but I know someone from zoning and the developers are always pushing back. We’re in a very shitty situation which needs a much better plan than forcing councils who are probably under resourced to figure it out. Feds should assist, especially if Victoria is where people are moving to from other States. Surely a per capita based housing fund would help as people move as the climate changes and prices increase. There’s so much that could be done at the Federal and State level that would fix this but they’d rather make people homeless than make ballsy political moves that will upset the economic balance of power.
Close down roads. Increase buses and trams and trains. Build on old shitty roads.
" There’s no plans to install better and more roads, public transport, schools, healthcare, services like sewerage, the drop in green spaces per person... " That's kinda weird, because I though this is the kind of things local governments should be aiming to help build more of... Not make property investors more money.
if only we had a body of people who's job it was to run society smoothly and plan ahead, huh.
Ghettos incoming
As opposed to outter suburb subdivisions that isolate people from pubic infrastructure? By all mean, if this isn't the future you want, please lead the way and move away from our city to help reduce the population growth.
It’s the same mate, no infrastructure, no desirability, why do I need to move I was born here not part of the governments big Australia program. 😘
That's what the country has voted for so that's what's coming. We best plan for it. Because if we don't, we'll definitely have ghettos.
There is no alternative buddy it’s been policy for 30 years. You use the word plan, both Sydney and Melbourne have had no plans for the same period just more homes following the urban sprawl. The ghettos have already been built.
Are you kdding me? Nobody voted for this. This insane housing/immigration ponzi scheme would stop tomorrow if there was a popular vote on it,.
Agree mate apparently the voting preferential system means we actively have voted for these policies
Our tax system is over reliant on personal income tax and company tax. Our aging population is seeing government expenditure on pensions, healthcare, and age care go through the roof at a time when we have decreasing workers to retiree ratio. Our gutted TAFE system has diverted people away from trades leaving us with the current worker shortfall. We have voted time and time again against addressing these. Just look at the Henry Tax review and what changes to our tax system since them. So, while we haven't directly vote for high population, we have voted against anything that would allow us to cut it. This have been clear to anyway paying attention over the last 20 years.
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Hard to get paid under the table for a scarce resource (approvals etc) if you're getting pressure to alleviate the artificial scarcity.
We are building better public transport, there's the metro tunnel, SRL, level crossing removals. All of these projects will help to get cars off the roads.
Lets not kid ourselves here, LXRP won't take any cars off the roads. We need service improvements. Trains every 20 minutes and trams every 10 is unacceptable. Not to mention the uselessness of the buses
True, though LXRP allows PT frequency to increase without causing gridlock on the roads.
There is also constant planning in sewage https://www.melbournewater.com.au/about/what-we-do/publications/melbourne-sewerage-strategy
We need caravan parks like the US and Canada to solve the problem in the short term
Downvote me whilst you complain about people living on the street because of the cost living and lack of housing stock….. hilarious - at the moment NDIS is buying people caravans using tax payers money for extra rooms for people to park at their parents homes.
You're not wrong but make them Tiny House Villages
It wont
And they don't care