How can we trust NSW Planning to deliver a liveable future when it is proposing planning changes that will lead to lower-quality, less sustainable housing, with no trees when we are expecting more intense future heat waves that will put lives at risk?

Read the article Unhealthy, dumbed-down homes. They’re making it the law in NSW by Peter Poulet, Cities Institute Director, published in the SMH October 15, 2024.

Housing is an issue. And all the talk and fury is about how to provide more housing, affordably. Yet right now, the NSW government is proposing and contemplating changes that will lead to lower-quality, less sustainable housing with worse amenities that will result in poorer health for occupants.

And the changes could quite possibly destroy the architecture profession in this state.

High-density housing at The Ponds in western Sydney. Credit:Wolter Peeters

How? Two major “reforms” are coinciding: amendments to building legislation and relaxation of design standards.

First, the Minns government vowed to introduce a single, consolidated building bill to simplify building legislation. So the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW), which has been foundational for 30 years, will be replaced by the Building Bill, a draft of which was released in August. Already, you can see the shift; it’s not about homes, it’s about building or, more bluntly, property development.

The aim is to better regulate building, but the kicker is the registration system for architects will be integrated into the new Building Bill, and the Architects Act will be repealed. Yet, the Architects Act is fundamentally about consumer protection and the accountability of those designing our buildings. Essentially, by introducing registration requirements to most arms of the construction industry to enforce greater accountability, the government is lowering the bar. It may look like it’s homogenising the construction design sector, but it’s cheapening it.

It will allow building designers to be licensed like architects but not bear the responsibility of architects. Architects study for a minimum of five years, sit practice examinations, show professional development throughout their practising career and, most importantly, hold insurance. Serious accountability to ensure consumers are protected. Also, a registration board can deregister or fine them, and it all seems to be working just fine. So why change it, particularly when there are few complaints or deregistrations?

Furthermore, it appears future students needn’t bother with architecture degrees and postgraduate training because they will be able to do a TAFE diploma to do the same job with less responsibility.

It is even possible NSW architects will not be able to practise in other states because their education and registration might not meet the competency standards of the national accreditation body, the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia.

Simultaneously, the government is quickly assessing a NSW Productivity Commission review of housing supply, released last week, which wants to relax design requirements for apartments, including the need for most to have some direct sunlight. Understandably, advocates such as the Committee for Sydney and the Australian Institute of Architects raised concerns about diminished design standards, and I share those concerns.

There seems to be a theme emerging, and as director of the UNSW Cities Institute, I’m worried. Our job is to find better ways forward for our urban environments, to make them healthier, more liveable, equitable and accessible. These moves will send us backwards.

The blithe dismissal of a profession is serious business, particularly when the profession has adapted its education model and thinking to encompass healthier and more sustainable living with consumer protection and satisfaction as its primary focus. Lowering standards is an even more serious business. While some of the commission’s recommendations are logical, the lessening of standards for apartment design is unhealthy. Literally.

Sydney’s problem has not been over-development; it has been poor development.

The real problem of delivering affordable housing of an appropriate standard lies in the segmentation of services driven by a variety of contractual arrangements, all designed to avoid responsibility for poor design and shoddy construction. The proposed legislation aims to be a solution to this mess. The answer, however, is not dumbing down the quality of housing or eliminating the few checks and balances we have.

It all feels particularly counterintuitive in a city still reeling from when a number of our new apartment blocks started cracking and listing a few Christmas Eves ago. The new bill, as it stands, and some of the more worrying commission recommendations will encourage cheap design and harmful standards. While trying to solve the housing problem, they will take us back to the 1990s.

That definitely won’t make housing more affordable. It will make housing of lower standards that is unable, or unwilling, to contribute to better, healthier communities in NSW.

Peter Poulet is the director of the UNSW Cities Institute.