Chief Executive | National planning reform – no blue ribbons just yet

For the first time this century, an Australian Prime Minister convened the Premiers to tackle housing supply and planning.

Australian Government national-competition-style payments to improve planning and housing supply is an historic win for a good idea.

A good idea first and most powerfully championed by the Property Council.

Two decades ago, Peter Verwer wisely did the groundwork for incentives, in conjunction with the planning best practice Development Assessment Forum. Peter was our industry’s champion of best practice planning for our cities. A decade later, Ken Morrison’s thought leadership with Deloitte, here, put flesh on the incentive framework bones.

Where incentives matter most is uplifting the planning and delivery mechanisms for our cities.

The National Cabinet model is blunt but has appeal.

First-in best-dressed federal incentives for the 200,000 homes above the optimistic 1,000,000 new homes by 2029.

Full marks to the Australian Government for the strategy. It may yet prove to make a real-world difference.

Keep in mind this is all ‘in theory’. There are short term state threats and a national threat to housing outcomes to contemplate before we are tempted to hand out the blue ribbons.

Certainly, Premiers were quick to claim they would produce the most extra houses. Take Victoria. They had a quick look north and Dan Andrews claimed victory before the opening shot was fired. (And yes, NSW is the planning wooden spooner for every one of the last 20 years. If there is any upside, the NSW Government appears to be starting to recognise that.)

Over the past decade Victoria was our Federation’s golden child on housing supply. The Victorian Government’s sensible focus on increasing use of brownfields for housing has recently been accelerated.

And yet there is no sign yet of a Victorian strategy for grandfathering delivery of existing green fields investments. These are needed to hit, let alone exceed, Victorian housing targets. Perhaps more mystifying, Victorian brownfields sites cannot get timely Planning Minister and departmental attention.

Fire in the hole! Clearly, Victoria needs to make the most of its upcoming September housing announcement to have a hope of rejoining the incentive queue.

The second major risk of a housing crawl space explosion is the draft Commonwealth Thin Cap legislation.

With no qualification, the Property Council supports the base erosion prevention aims of the Bill. And yet, without amendment, the Bill risks much of the foreign investment needed to build 150,000 build to rent homes among many other property investments over the next decade.

As we observed on our draft amendments to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee last week, we have to move forward with this or we will “directly score an own goal on housing affordability”.

A lot to play for this month. The reality remains, improved state planning systems are required to deliver projects, infrastructure and housing while strategically reserving industrial land. We need to encourage the creation of appropriately located housing options for retirees, students and renters and we need to do this without laying more tax trip wires along the way. Looking directly at you Brisbane City Council.

ACT Gala Ball

Great to join Phil O’Brien, Division Council and the terrific ACT and Capital Region team under Executive Director Shane Martin, ably abetted by NSW Executive Director Katie and team – Anita, Cath and Keziah – for last Friday’s incredible ACT Gala Ball. A Triumph!