Unlock the suburbs for housing but do it properly and for the right reasons

You are in luck then cause the ACT Govt has already targeted the entire Inner North including those named subjects for much higher density development. You can look in the Inner North District Strategy and you will see large chunks of these suburbs coloured in with a yellow highlighter.

These are Future Investigation Areas, and the govt wants to put in 17,000-21,000 additional dwellings in the Inner North, and these areas are in the firing line. Similar in the Inner South. That will require thousands of houses to be destroyed, and many existing open space areas and other facilities (eg race courses, horse paddocks, parks) to be developed into apartments. Some of that is a good idea, particularly where large greenfields areas can be developed into high density.

Campbell (where I live) has already had a lot of infill. Some it good, all of it expensive, some not so good. After a decade of pretty serious ongoing development it is now roughly 50:50 houses and high/medium density along with very significant increase in population over the last decade. The past greenfields sites have now already been developed. ACT Government released projections saying they believe that Campbell’s population will grow from currently 4775 to 8061.

https://citynews.com.au/2018/opinion-weve-got-share-infill-say-campbell-residents/

The ACT Govt is now expecting something like another 1300 townhouses and apartments to built in the suburb purely through knocking over existing houses. There will not be any the Master planning associated with large greenfields development like C5 or Doma.

Just block by block demolitions followed by large, expensive duplexes and triplexes. Recent history of development demonstrates that it will neither be affordable or diverse types of dewllings, nor than trees and vegation will be retained.

I think that was one of the types of demonstration houses proposed. Stellulata. I think that they are a reasonable idea and would suit some people. I do wonder how it would work over time and how the commercial aspects work when people move, pass away etc.

I think it would fall into the type of dwelling that planning legislation might ‘allow; but which developers would not actually build. Hence, I think that developers and MAster Builders talk about diverse housing as a means to get support for rezoning, but they have zero intention to build co-housing projects as a means to sell and make money.

Secondly, I think it is unlikely that architect designed homes in high land cost areas are likely to meet the definition of affordable.

I do think that the Govt actually building these homes as public housing is a more likely pathway. The barriers seems to be hit when Govt tries to cram in too many units into a location.

I think Governments can step up and lead.

At the moment the ACT Govt (specifically) do not listen to residents concerns, and actively steering the ship in a different direction to the community.

They dont want to talk about form and scale of development, heritage, the lived reality of denuded blocks devoid of trees and vegetation, impact on existing amenity, impact on traffic, or parking all over the shop. They specifically avoid evaluating and looking at what hasn’t worked in past infill development.

We do need to do more infill, but like the headlines says “we need to do it properly”. I wish the community that I am could have some confidence that ACT PLA and the Govt will do it properly and balance the various the various competing interests, rather than simply triavialise or completely ignore resident’s concerns.

Have a wander around Ijong Street for example. Very pleasant and green at street level yet being mid to high density low rise. Nobody but a spoilt NIMBY would walk down this street and think of it as anything but a lovely place to live. A short walk to the CBD and a park at the end of the street. Who could want for more in the middle of a city?

Thanks for the suggestion. I will have a wander on Ijong St, Braddon. I am less familar with that area. Is that an area where I could expect to find affordable housing with a range of dwelling types?

There is already large amount of medium and high density housing in Canberra including in the Inner North. Depending on the area it was often designed that way and purposely built as medium density. This has been the reality for many decades.

I think redevelopment of areas that had houses into far higher density has far less to commend it.

No it wasn’t built that way. It was initially a typical inner suburban street with small bungalows on large blocks. And no, it doesn’t have a ‘rangevod dwelling types.’ It is however, along with a number of streets around it, an example of medium to high density housing on a leafy street with a lovely tree canopy.

Small developers knocking down crappy old ex govies on oversized blocks and replacing them with two or three townhouses is exactly what we should be doing. My 810 metres is prime for the plucking. Unless you think our only option is to buy an overpriced box from the big boys (who incidentally don’t give a fig about RZ 1 – 2 as they are playing in a much bigger sandbox).

I don’t think apartments are all bad. We will need more in the future, and there all far more now than 10 years ago. Especially need them in the city centres. My suburb has about 500 more apartments than 10 years ago.

Also agree that large developers don’t care about rz1 and rz2. But small developers and builders absolutely do, hence the concerted ongoing lobbying campaign by their industry lobby group to change planning rules.

Similarly, the hundreds of thousands of people who already live in RZ1 and RZ2 zones have opinions and beliefs about their development rules in their community.

It is pretty bizarre to think that Canberra is hoping to get affordable housing in the most expensive areas. Diverse affordable dwelling have not been built in RZ2 and Mr Fluffy blocks in Inner North and Inner South cause developers build what makes them the most money, and some parts of the community can afford it.

Hoping for affordable diverse housing in inner areas is different to having an evidence base to support a rational belief that it will actually happen.

You have raised some excellent points Michael. The Draft Territory Plan and District Strategies are lacking evidence in a range of areas to support the Governments wishful thinking. A detailed evaluation of the types of developments that have been built in RZ2 zones and Mr Fluffy blocks, the impact on neighbours and the local community, local infrastructure and the environment, should be conducted urgently to help inform future strategies. The Government are specifically targeting areas in the inner-North and South for one reason – to increase revenue from rates resulting from the increase in the number of dwellings. The Government are not seriously interested in providing housing choice or affordable housing. The deplorable lack of sufficient social housing and the fact that the ACT has the highest rents in Australia (largely due to high rates and land tax) highlights this. The Productivity Commission reported recently that the number of public housing dwellings in the ACT in 2021 was below the number in 2012 (10,950) and the peak in 2018 (11,181). Planning at its best.

There are a few other reasons that intense infill is also attractive to ACT Govt. It means that they can continue to neglect investment and expenditure in social infrastructure in Tuggeranong, outer Belconnen and Gunghalin. They can avoid hard infrastructure costs in developing new land, plus avoid sprawl.

They never talk about the honeypot of stamp duty that comes from splitting RZ blocks, and the increased land tax on a per unit basis.

We are a city that likes trees, open space, community facilites and infrastructure.

It is possible to do more and better medium density in the limited greenfields in Inner North and Inner South to complement the large amount of existing medium and high density development thoughout the city that has already occured over many decades.

I dont think painting yellow zones on RZ1 areas in maps (Future Investigation Areas), changing zoning rules and then standing back will retain what the existing community values, or deliver the affordable and diverse housing that lobbyists claim will magically appear. I think the past actions of developers is a pretty good guide to their future behaviour.

Some of the missing middle narrative in Australia is borrowed from the US lobby groups and activists. I kinda understand the context there.

But I am not sure of the relevance of “the racial connotations of ‘white flight’ to the American suburbs in the 20th century” to Canberra town planning discussions at the moment.

As I said, leave the racial connotations aside. Nonetheless, borrowing emotive and racially loaded terminology is not useful in a discussion about Canberra planning. Typically the type of NIMBY alarmism that stifles much progress and worthwhile development.

We can agree that borrowing emotive racially loaded language from US does not help anyone here.

I agree 100% with your sentiments Alex.
Canberran’s generally complain about our rates yet continue to sprout the idea that urban infill is not sustainable for our city.
I would challenge all the complainers to research the term Transit Oriented Development (TOD).

Why politicise this? The city will grow and as such will need proper management of its finite land resources, regardless which side of politics you subscribe to.

Really? That much in just 10 years?

Looking at statistics from the past that amount of growth is basically impossible no matter how many levers the government were to pull.

I think he meant 2060…

Pretty sure that was either a typo or misunderstanding. Either way, no doubt that population growth is coming, and that housing affordability is terrible, so we need to plan and do things differently.

So Stephen which parents are you intending to mandate that they cant have children or only one child?
And, how many children do you have and how many your parents ?