Holland Metropole’s Post

If we want to increase housing supply, what are we doing to free up Council resources? I am using a very minor example to demonstrate that there could be a comprehensive way of identifying inconsequential approvals so as to redirect council resources towards housing supply matters. I lodged a DA for a fence. After 8 days its status remains "pending lodgment" on the Planning Portal. I called council, they have a lot of applications and are dealing with them on a first come, first served basis. Council over a week to consider whether they will accept lodgment of a DA for a retaining wall straddling a boundary and supporting a fence. The documentation is a 1 page covering letter, two plans containing sections, a construction specification, proof of ownership (both sides of the boundary) and references to supporting clauses in the Dividing Fences Act and the Exempt & Complying Development Act. Why did I lodge a DA if these Acts deem a fence and its supporting structure on a boundary to be exempt development? Because, where the support structure of the fence is a retaining wall, the Dividing Fences Act does not apply if Council has a policy that requires a DA. They want a DA because they are concerned about disputes (which they won't get involved in), but if I shift it onto one lot or the other, no DA is needed. As an aside, the Dividing Fences Act deals with the dual ownership issue for the fence and suggests the supporting structure (the retaining wall) is part of the fence. If I move the retaining wall, I will end up with a compromised side access for that house. I don't want the person who buys the house I build and sell, being inconvenienced for all time. It is a very small issue, right? But here are the implications: 1. Unnecessarily inconvenient to future residents. A bad outcome. 2. Unnecessary waste of resources. 3. A certifier would deal with it if councils don't deem a DA necessary. 4. It has taken over a week so far to simply accept lodgment of a simple DA. 5. How long will it take to issue a consent that is inevitable? 6. All this work will delay my buyers from moving into their home. If we want to build more houses quickly, we need to put our valuable and scarce resources to better use. I would suggest that the Dept of Planning ask Councils to conduct an audit of what their staff are spending their time on, identify the legislative triggers for that work and where appropriate, promote changes to the EP& A Act, LEPs and DCPs The Dept of Planning could review those suggestions and enact the changes it deemed viable. The aim would be to help to free up Council resources. A small step in a long journey towards achieving what are extremely ambitious housing targets. In the example above, the Dividing Fences Act has dispute resolution provisions, so if a privately certified retaining wall became the subject of dispute, it would deal with it - Council would not be involved anyway.

An interesting debate about housing supply vs property rights unfolding in the City of Port Phillip. The Age reporting on several cases where older blocks of flats are being consolidated and demolished, to be replaced with a single house or fewer dwellings than before. It's an interesting policy discussion, with me remaining on the side of not prohibiting consolidation or enforcing the retention of minimum dwelling numbers where someone is able to afford the site. Others have a different view: "Patrick Fensham, 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 Planning Institute of Australia’𝘴 𝘝𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴." What these cases also reveal is a phenomenon which will impact the supply of smaller-scale #development for some time yet. In short, higher multi-dwelling development costs are resulting in the underlying land value for many smaller sites being higher as a single residential dwelling than the the value a developer will pay. This means sites otherwise zoned for potentially incremental development, particularly in NRZ and GRZ, will in many cases remain or be redeveloped into single dwellings. 🤔𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗥𝗟 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗮𝘅𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗱. https://lnkd.in/gchFB_Q3 Sophie Aubrey UDIA Victoria Department of Transport and Planning

Clearly David Eby's previous experience as housing minister, and the obvious focus on housing during his tenure as Premier (the Eby government has introduced more pro-housing regulation and substantive housing supply initiatives over the last 22 months than all preceding governments over the past 10+ years) is paying dividends in the form of a detailed, thoughtful, multi-pronged housing platform during this election campaign. A pre-fab home construction strategy is an absolutely necessary part of any effective multi-pronged strategy to address the structural housing shortage. However, having researched the industry, conducted underwriting to invest in (or even acquiring) these types of businesses, it is fairly clear that presently, full scale modular is unlikely to work in the Canadian market due to inherent challenges related to the lack of sufficient scale. That said, there are currently prefab businesses that are factory building certain component of parts of the total construction build successfully and profitably in Canada, and can offer significant improvements in efficiency and cost savings. Think about it. Without this type of pre-fab home construction element, even if there were millions of new home projects already zoned and permitted, and sufficient financing lined up TODAY, there would be insufficient labour to build everything with traditional construction methods in a timely manner, which would lead to a huge construction bottle neck IMMEDIATELY. Global News: Eby says NDP would fast-track pre-fabricated homes to ease housing crisis British Columbia NDP Leader David Eby says his government would fast-track factory-built homes as part of its strategy to ease the province’s housing crisis. At an election campaign stop on Vancouver Island, Eby says pre-built homes cut waste, reduce emissions, and the advances in the industry mean the homes are “beautiful and high-quality.” A statement issued by the NDP says its government would work with the industry, municipalities and First Nations to create a provincewide framework so builders know what’s required in every community. It says there would also be a pre-approved set of construction designs to reduce the permitting process, and it would also work with the industry to develop the skills training needed to support pre-fabricated home construction. It says Scandinavian countries have embraced factory-built homes, which “offer an alternative to the much slower, more costly process of building on-site.” The statement says legislation passed by the NDP government last year was a “game changer” for the factory-built home construction industry in the province, where there are currently 10 certified manufacturing plants. “By growing B.C.’s own factory-built home construction industry, everyone from multi-generational families to municipalities will be able to quickly build single homes, duplexes and triplexes on land they already own,” Eby says.

⚡ Multi-Family Permits in Surrey Increase by 53% Surrey saw a 40% rise in overall residential permits during the first nine months of 2024, driven by a 53% increase in multi-family housing permits, including low- and high-rise apartments. Single-family home construction, however, dropped by 22%. Non-residential permits, particularly in industrial, commercial, and institutional categories, also increased. Read the full story by Surrey Now-Leader: https://lnkd.in/gdCnT3Nr Check out realestaterecap.ca for 15-second summaries of the latest real estate news in your area and across Canada. ✅

Our mission has always been to tackle the housing crisis sustainably and support the homebuilding industry to deliver more homes, including affordable housing. That’s why we were thrilled to provide data and analysis to the The Times to investigate the Governments ‘Grey Belt’ Golden Rules and their impact on site Viability. We used our software to automate the viability assessment of a number of potential grey belt sites in the London green belt and varied the affordable housing requirements to see the impact on Viability and housing delivery. And our findings were very interesting. With a 50% affordable housing requirement, 80% of small-scale Grey Belt sites posed a ‘significant financial risk’ to developers. As you would imagine, reducing the requirement to 35% significantly improved the number of ‘Viable’ opportunities. The most interesting outcome was that reducing the affordable requirement had the overall effect of increasing the delivery of affordable housing. In this case 35% of something is more than 50% of nothing. We believe that in order to deliver more homes and especially more affordable homes the ‘Golden Rules’ must be flexible. If the requirements render sites unviable then no homes will be delivered at all, be it market or affordable. If you’re interested to learn more, then head to the article on our website, linked in the comments! #Housing #SustainableDevelopment #HousingCrisis #PropTech #PropertyInvestment #Viability #Homebuilding #Housebuilding #Development #PropertyDevelopment #SMEDevelopers https://lnkd.in/eYcUtFvh

Brad Bradford has this right. Here are his 3 recommendations from this article; (with my addition of a 4th at the end) Toronto Star: 1) Full development charge relief, without caveats. New requirements to include 20% affordable units disqualify the majority of projects. Condominiums should also be included to increase supply and options across the housing continuum. 2) Relief from Parkland Dedication and other fees that are under municipal control. Before we add to our wish list from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, let’s talk about priorities and reach into our toolbox right here at City Hall. 3) Make this a time-limited program. The program should sunset after two years, requiring developers to apply for their building permit within that window. This will help control program costs and incentivize builders to move quickly in delivering the homes we need. Jon adds: 4) Transition Rules - careful consideration has to be given to transition rules to protect those that start construction prior to these changes being impacted, otherwise we will all wait until we have clarity, further aggregating the housing shortage.

https://lnkd.in/dqszBCRA Does anyone want to wager that these homes never get built and if they do they will cost double of this amount and close to $1 billion. If private sector is not involved in the construction of these homes, and if the housing market overheats, as expected, why are Builders going to construct these rather than their own?

A rezoning blitz is needed to radically move the dial on the current housing crisis. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has called on governments to undergo an extensive program of land rezoning across major cities and towns, to allow medium and high-density development in the vicinity of infrastructure and services. BCA Chief Executive Bran Black said zoning reforms were imperative to address housing supply. “As it stands, based on current construction rates, Australia will not be able to meet the targeted 1.2 million new dwellings under the National Housing Accord over the next five years,” Mr Black said. He said ABS data for dwelling completions over the 2023-24 financial year showed around 176,000 new dwellings built, falling around 64,000 homes short of what would be needed each year going forward. “We need state and territory governments to unlock more land for more homes in cities and towns across Australia so we can fix this supply crisis.” Mr Black said there was also a need for a transparent process for home builders to put forward proposals to boost housing supply, through rezoning, managed by state government and consolidated zoning types that were broad and consistent across entire states, providing clarity for home builders. “These changes need to allow for greater density and height near good transport services, while at the same time protecting the quality of life, green space and heritage of an area.” “Put simply, we need to build enough homes where people want to live, so until we fix that problem, it will be very hard to hit our housing targets. Building a home in the right place is as important as building it at all.” Mr Black said that across the Tasman in New Zealand, Auckland was an excellent example of how rezoning changes have been successful in improving supply and ultimately lowering price pressures. “In 2016, Auckland rezoned about three quarters of residential land, and a massive increase in home building followed. “They’ve now shared a report showing that this has contained the cost of housing in the long run, approving affordability, with rents at least 26 per cent below what they would have been without the rezoning, and a stabilisation of long-term dwelling prices” Mr Black said. https://lnkd.in/gqDHrQqw #housing #property #zoning Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

I hate to come down on the side of supporting a delay, but that’s where I am. Many small to mid scale developments(let’s say 5-30 units and majority of new units in Boston) that would have penciled(been feasible) 5 years ago at 13% affordable units don’t come any where close to being feasible now, and definitely won’t when required to provide 20% affordable units. And I’m someone who strongly believes that mixed income housing is critical for reducing economic stratification in Boston. I bet we would drive market prices down faster if we removed all affordable housing requirements for market rate projects, while simultaneously allowing 100% affordable housing projects great leeway with regards to zoning and density. The status quo of the past 5 years or so is having the opposite effect on the market than what was intended.