Housing is more complex than a simple nimby-yimby divide would suggest

READ The Guardian article below:

‘Australian cities are desperate for the ‘missing middle’ of housing density, 29 October 2024, The Guardian.

But it’s not as simple as the nimby-yimby debate suggests’ author Peter Mares.

He suggests a more sophisticated planning approach is needed to build homes for more people while still providing greenery and open space

Various housing densities in Brisbane. ‘The holy grail of urban consolidation in established suburbs is a shift from free-standing dwellings to European-style, medium-rise apartments.’ Photograph: Darren England/AAP



The Business Council of Australia wants local governments to be stripped of decision-making powers if they fail to meet “basic timeliness requirements” when processing development applications.

The Victorian government is already heading in this direction. It intends to override council planning to fast-track apartment blocks around transport hubs in established suburbs.

There’s a widespread view that local government shoulders responsibility for our housing shortfall because proscriptive regulations enable well-heeled objectors to block or delay projects. Bolder council action on housing would certainly be welcome. But the matter is more complex than a simple nimby-yimby divide would suggest.

Five years ago, Australia was building homes at a rapid clip. More than 215,000 dwellings were completed nationwide in 2018-19 and more than 1m homes in the five years before that, matching the target set in the 2022 housing accord struck by national cabinet soon after the Albanese government took office. If we’d kept building at that pace, we’d get within spitting distance of the accord’s revised target of 1.2m homes by 2029. Now, though, we’re miles away. Last financial year fewer than 175,000 new homes were completed.

It wasn’t “red tape” and local government delays that caused the slowdown in residential construction but changed business conditions.

Covid was followed by supply chain bottlenecks, rising material costs and shortages of skilled labour. Higher interest rates increased the cost of borrowing for developers and made potential buyers wary of buying off the plan. This has a big impact on larger apartment projects, because most developers need to pre-sell 60% to 70% of units to secure finance before they can build. Overseas buyers are an important part of this market, and in 2017 the Coalition government made it harder to get the numbers to stack up by imposing a 50% cap on foreign ownership in new multi-storey buildings with 50 or more apartments. State governments also hit foreign investors with extra fees, including stamp duty surcharges.

Construction will increase if business conditions improve, though that may go hand in hand with rising property prices, which is hardly good news for affordability. The boom-bust cycle that characterises residential development is one reason why more public investment in social housing is so crucial. Apart from providing homes for Australians whose needs aren’t met by the market, public investment helps maintain overall housing supply in a downturn.

Even with greater public investment, planning has a big role to play in helping the private sector to accommodate a growing population – just not in a way that it’s usually understood.

The holy grail of urban consolidation in established suburbs is a shift from free-standing dwellings to European-style, medium-rise apartments that can accommodate many more people while still providing greenery and open spaces. This is the so-called “missing middle”, a much-needed alternative to the high-rise residential towers creating wind tunnels in city centres and the steady march of detached housing rolling over farmlands on the urban fringes.

Yet high-quality urban infill is easier said than done. A significant challenge lies in the fragmented pattern of land ownership that was put in place as our cities grew. A single suburban lot is generally too small to accommodate mid-rise housing built around courtyards or shared gardens. If we are going to meet our housing aspirations, we need to overcome the fragmented pattern of land ownership established in postwar subdivisions. This means a bigger government role to create incentives for blocks to be amalgamated to a scale to allow precinct-level redevelopment.

Detached houses on separate blocks provide plenty of benefits. Back yards provide space for leisure; gardens absorb rainfall, reducing runoff and flood risks and mature trees cool the landscape. But much of our postwar housing stock is no longer fit for purpose. It was built without thought for energy efficiency or the impact of the climate crisis, and intended for larger households than today. Many houses are now underutilised. At the 2021 census more than 1.2m homes had three or more bedrooms “in excess of need”.

Under current settings, these family homes are being demolished one by one. Some make way for two, three or more townhouses squeezed on to a single parcel of land; others are replaced by McMansions. Sometimes the original house is retained but a granny flat added or the block subdivided in a battle-axe arrangement to fit another dwelling.

Such piecemeal redevelopment brings a modest increase in density but with the loss of the very things that make suburban life attractive. Trees are cut down and open space disappears as gardens give way to concrete and brick. The ad hoc nature of this redevelopment also makes it harder for local and state governments to ensure services and infrastructure can keep pace with population growth.

We are at risk of getting the worst of all worlds. More high-rise towers in the centre and around train stations and more urban sprawl on the fringes, combined with the loss of amenity in established suburbs as existing houses are gradually replaced by piecemeal redevelopment. We need a strategic approach to facilitate well-designed medium rise development at a scale that accommodates more people, creates shared open space and preserves greenery. We need more sophisticated planning, not less.

Peter Mares is a fellow at the Centre for Policy Development and the author of No Place Like Home: Repairing Australia’s Housing Crisis

Housing is complex in
Ku-ring-gai too

READ the FOKE article below that REFLECTS & RESPONDS to The Guardian article by Peter Mares, 29 October 2024

FOKE is calling for a more sophisticated planning approach for Ku-ring-gai.

One that builds a sustainable, liveable, net zero and affordable home future whilst still preserving its high biodiversity – bush turkeys live amongst the Gordon Railway Station Gardens – and its beautiful gardened, tall tree lined streets and bushland landscape. It has been characterised as where the natural form dominates the built form. No where else in Sydney has Ku-ring-gai’s tall dominating Blue Gums that fill the sky with its large canopy branches.

Indeed, in an age of biodiversity collapse we should be providing even more ‘greenery’ that restores, rejuvenates and builds resilience to Ku-ring-gai’s urban forests. They are essential for Sydney and renowned as the ‘lungs of Sydney’.

Ku-ring-gai’s tree canopy, rich biodiversity needs urgent protection. It is where the last remaining critically Endangered Ecological Community of Blue Gum High Forest and Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest is left on the planet. It is a haven for wildlife who utterly depend on Ku-ring-gai’s tree canopy for hollows – that takes decades to form, as well as for food, nesting and survival. Ku-ring-gai is a rare urban Sydney Forest that needs planning controls that ensure its survival into the future.

FOKE has always challenged the holy grail of urban consolidation particularly for Ku-ring-gai with its garden heritage suburbs created by the North Shore railway line.

Four consecutive railway stations – Roseville, Lindfield, Killara, Gordon – along that railway line are now designated as Transpor Oriented Developments (TODs). These blunt 400 metre concentric circled maps designate the location of six storey apartment infill development. Yet this “missing middle” threatens to wipe out what many consider an environmentally sensitive area as well as a place that has some of the best domestic architecture in the country.

The railway line that created Ku-ring-gai’s heritage is now threatening to destroy this golden era of free-standing Federation, inter-war and 20th Century architecture.

The North Shore railway line is also on a rising ridgeline with its western side steeply sloping downwards into the Lane Cove National Park. Its eastern side slopes into the Garigal National Park.

Another reason that makes Ku-ring-gai unique. Ku-ring-gai is essentially a catchment to three surrounding national parks. It is a wildlife corridor between national parks and bushland valleys connecting the North Shore to the Hawkesbury to the north, Parramatta to the west and the Northern Beaches to the east.

Ku-ring-gai’s steep terrain and ridge-top development leads to greater flood risk from flash flooding. It is also a highly prone bushfire area.

Yet for past decades Ku-ring-gai’s geographic and ecological constraints have been blatantly ignored.

Ku-ring-gai’s environmental splendour has been significantly eroded in the last two decades as it has taken its fair share of medium density that has been built by demolishing swaths of potential heritage areas and ‘gardened and tall treed wildlife connectivity’. Its natural dominated landscape has been replaced by concrete, hard surface medium-rise apartments. And now locals fear more will be lost forever and irreversibly concrete the landscape forever.

The NSW government is determined to prioritise housing supply at all costs. It is determined to override local government democratic council planning to fast-track apartment blocks around transport hubs in the garden suburbs of Ku-ring-gai.

The acronym ‘TOD’ (Transport Oriented Development) has entered the language. It was created in late 2023 when the NSW Government announced its signature high density policy across Greater Sydney. It undemocratically bypassed Council zoning controls.

Researchers Peter Mares acknowledges that housing is more complex than ‘the simple nimby-yimby divide’ would suggest. Yet few understand the complexity of housing in Ku-ring-gai.

The “missing middle”, a description that describes medium density (around 6 storeys) is hailed as a solution to high-rise residential towers. Yet this too can have devastating consequences for established garden suburbs like Ku-ring-gai with its Heritage Conservation Areas and heritage homes. How can residential heritage houses and streetscapes be respected, protected and appreciated into the future if it has a six storey apartments towering over them?

Detached houses on separate blocks are the fabric of Ku-ring-gai’s heritage. It is what protects the tree canopy for the majority of Blue Gums grow on private land ie front and back yards.

The space around a detached home not only provides space for leisure; create amenity and absorb rainfall and keeps us cool. It is essential for reducing stormwater runoff into three national parks that surround Ku-ring-gai and infesting it with weeds and increasing water pollution that stops people swimming on our beaches.

It is misleading to say that Ku-ring-gai’s postwar housing stock is no longer fit for purpose. They have been solidly built – mostly in double brick. The demolition of these houses and the razing of garden blocks exacerbates the climate crisis. The smaller homes and garden flats are often affordable, but they are increasingly being demolished for larger houses for the same number of households. The new concrete buildings are big carbon emitters.

With Exempt and Complying development many family homes are being demolished, replaced by ever expensive McMansions. One sold for nearly $10 million dollars? How can that be?

Subdivisions basically eliminate the necessary space for Ku-ring-gai’s tall canopy trees.

Twenty years ago, residents described urban densification as the ‘rape of Ku-ring-gai’. Today some are saying it will be the ‘death of Ku-ring’-ai’. Ku-ring-gai’s remaining natural landscape will be bulldozed, razed, destroyed and transformed into a bland, homogenous. 21st Century airport architecture hard surface inner city dwelling. The trees will go. The birds will go and we will be left wondering how did we let this all happen?. Ku-ring-gai’s local character and precious environment will be lost forever.

With perpetual population growth, local and state governments will never be able keep up with demands for new open space, playgrounds, schools, hospitals and other services and infrastructure.

The ‘hungry giant’ is never satisfied. When will the high rise rezonings stop? Nor will the urban densification stop the urban sprawl on the fringes.

FOKE is calling for a more sophisticated planning approach for Ku-ring-gai. And that might mean that we need to start having a mature conversation about how we are to achieve a sustainable long-term future that challenges ‘forever growth’ that will kill us all.




References

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/files/assets/public/v/1/hptrim/information-management-publications-public-website-ku-ring-gai-council-website-planning-and-development/ku-ring-gai-local-character-background-study-broad-local-character-areas-report.pdf

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Planning-and-development/Planning-policies-and-guidelines/Strategies-and-management-plans/Ku-ring-gai-Urban-Forest-Strategy

https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/strategies-action-plans/urban-forest-strategy

https://blog.mipimworld.com/guide-green-real-estate/green-real-estate-role-urban-forests-city-sustainability/

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