More than 10,000 proposed apartments with development approvals are in limbo across Western Australia because of sky-high project costs.
The finding has been made in the Property Council WA’s new ‘Sky High’ report, developed with Bridge42 and supported by data from specialist consultancy Urbis.
More than 12,500 proposed apartments have received development approval since 2020, but construction has commenced on only 2140 of them, the report found.
Property Council WA Executive Director Nicola Brischetto said WA needs far more apartments to ease the state’s housing crisis.
“There are currently 10,000 planned apartments with development approvals that are in limbo across Western Australia.
“Sky-high construction costs and government-related taxes, fees and charges are among the biggest barriers to having these apartments built.
“Building affordable apartments is particularly challenging as the projects simply don’t stack up.
“There is no ‘silver bullet’ or single measure that will make these apartments financially viable.
“However, the Property Council WA has made several recommendations to the state government that could tip the scales in getting these apartments to stack up financially.
“There are limited levers the Government has to address construction costs, but all state and local government taxes, fees, and charges need to be on the table, as well as short-term rebates and moratoriums.
“Our recommendations include land tax rebates, expanding the eligibility of apartment transfer duty concessions and introducing relocation incentives for interstate residential construction workers.
“These low-hanging fruit reforms could substantially improve home completion rates for the state.
“Driving down the overall cost of delivering apartments would be a game changer in easing Western Australia’s housing crisis.
“For Western Australia to build its fair share of the Federal Government’s National Housing Accord’s 1.2 million new homes target, we’ll need to construct 130,000 of them by mid-2029 – or 26,000 each year.
“Last Financial year, only 17,700 homes were built in the state.”
Sky High breaks down the issues preventing desperately needed apartment projects from being built on the scale needed to help solve WA’s housing crisis.