Home Property Australia GOOD, BAD AND UGLY OF PLANNING

GOOD, BAD AND UGLY OF PLANNING

  • September 01, 2017

Another weekend and another round of barking up the wrong tree on housing affordability.

This time it was the Greens’ plan to abolish negative gearing (which is helping to support construction of a record 200,000 new dwellings) to fund just 3,125 new social housing units a year. Go figure.

Of course, the key issues driving housing prices higher are record low interest rates and housing supply not keeping pace with our growing population.

The supply side problems are endemic and need a major focus from governments at all levels. Last week we released the most comprehensive analysis of Australia’s development assessment systems ever undertaken, which makes a handy reform roadmap.

The Development Assessment Report Card – an initiative of our Residential Development Council leadership group – is a frank but fair review of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of planning.

The Report Card analyses each planning system and the impact of recent reforms, and scores each state and territory based on widely accepted planning principles.

The most striking finding is that, despite the many positive initiatives of governments, we are still lacking planning systems which are able to cope with population growth and demographic change.

The Property Council believes the time is right for a national response to incentivise reform around the country. It’s good for affordability and good for the economy.