Industrial must keep up with Mega Trends

The Property Council Industrial Outlook event heard from NSW Chief Planner Gary White this month who lamented the slow pace at which Government and the planning system responds to major new trends.

Mega Trends are particularly relevant in the industrial space where the rise of ecommerce and the construction boom has created new demand for industrial property and sped up the transition to automation and introduced new disruption in the last mile delivery of goods

“If you don’t keep up with mega trends, then you won’t be here in five years,” Gary White, NSW Chief Planner told the crowd of industrial property developers and investors.

“We are experiencing a massive change, a new economy and currently our planning system is not keeping up with megatrends.”

Advancement in transportation and how Sydney plans for it’s employment land precincts were also a touched upon.

“I think Sydney has been caught with its pants down around transportation,” Mr White said.

“People say that drones are coming; but drones are already here and will change the way our logistics sector operates.”

“Sydney will be a myriad of activity centres, centred on primary industries,” he said.

Head of Industrial Research at Colliers, Sass J-Baleh, who also spoke at the event, lamented the current approach to measuring the amount of employment land floorspace demand through headline employment numbers in industries such as manufacturing.

“We know that while employment numbers in industries such as manufacturing have dropped off and we have made decisions on floorspace demand based on these numbers and rezoned employment land accordingly, yet the demand for employment land continues to be strong,” Ms J-Baleh said.

“This means we have to look past the headline employment figures when making decisions about employment land to avoid an affordability crisis and ensure new industries can invest.”  

Key new tenants for employment land that will drive demand in the years to come include retail trade, construction, information media and telecommunications and scientific and technical services

“As our city grows both in population and geographic size, our need for building materials, groceries, electronics, homewares and the investment of new industries will only grow, increasing the demand for industrial property,” Property Council NSW Executive Director Jane Fitzgerald said.

“This means we will need more flexible approaches to where employment land is located and how industrial property is designed and built.”