City’s townhouse boom is happening, but not where it’s meant to

Burgess, who has analyzed more than 20 years of medium-density consent data for Melbourne, said the new regulation had not yet shifted the trajectory of townhouse development towards the edges but it was too early to assess its impact.

“I hope this will eliminate one of the barriers to townhome development,” he said.

“If you’re proposing a development and you know it’s going to be approved within 10 days, that eliminates a lot of uncertainty, especially for smaller builders and developers where the prospect of being in a planning process for 18 months or two years is enough to get the project done.”

Ten years ago 80 per cent of townhouses were built in Melbourne’s inner and central suburbs. Today, that rate is closer to 60 percent, while almost 40 percent of new medium-density housing is built in the city’s outer suburban growth areas.

Analysis of approvals data reveals that medium-density approvals fell 16 percent in established suburbs this year to 5,741, while growth areas rose 24 percent to a record 3,354 approvals.

The City of Casey in Melbourne’s south-east has approved more townhouse developments than any other council this year; followed by Whittlesea, Hume, Melton and Wyndham. All are areas of growth.

In Melbourne’s mid-ring, Merri-bek in the inner north has the highest number of townhouse approvals, while Bayside and Boroondara have bucked the downward trend in approvals, despite being a frequent target of hostility from the state government over their resistance to increasing housing density.

Melbourne, Port Phillip, Nillumbik, Yarra and Stonnington councils (all but one of which are within the city) have approved fewer than 100 medium-density homes this year.

Burgess said townhouse development in inner Melbourne was minimal because medium-density housing was not financially viable for many developers.

“It basically goes back to development costs,” he said. “After all, the amount you need to sell your projects for exceeds what the market is willing to pay.”

Music therapist Jim Slattery and his wife Kirsty Hopper will move into a townhouse in Lyndhurst, City of Casey, next month.

The couple bought their two-bedroom property for $600,000 in October and will soon leave their rental home in Keysborough, closer to the city.

Slattery, 29, said their first home purchase was determined by affordability.

“We spent some time here [in Keysborough]”And we really liked it, but when we wanted to buy a place, we felt like the prices were pushing us further and further away,” he said.

Slattery purchased the townhouse through Ray White’s partner, Chaminda Gunasekara.

Günasekara said there was an explosion in the number of townhouses being built in the outer southeast.

“Ten to 15 years ago, people were like, ‘I don’t want a townhouse, I want a house with a lot because the land is appreciating,'” he said.

“But things have changed a lot in this area probably in the last five years. With all the new developments that are being developed, 10 years ago there were probably 20 to 30 townhouses on one site, now there are 100 to 200. They keep building them because there’s demand.”

Gunasekara said interest in townhomes was mostly coming from first-home buyers.

Dr D., emeritus professor of public policy at RMIT University. David Hayward said the data showed the intentions and outcomes of the government’s planning reforms were “divisive”.

“Since they introduced reforms to remove local planning powers, approvals have actually been decreasing, not increasing,” he said.

“It actually confirms the idea that getting involved in planning is not the way to solve the housing crisis.”

Hayward said the government’s long-term retreat from building housing was more likely to create a housing shortage in inner and central Melbourne than councils’ failure to approve high-density housing.

“We have a lot of evidence over the last 40 years that the private market is not working and cannot work effectively,” he said.

“You need to have significant levels of direct government investment to achieve your own set goals. There’s no use pretending the market is perfect, except for pesky planners. The evidence doesn’t support it.”

Social housing accounts for just 2.8 per cent of Victoria’s housing stock; This is well below the national rate of 4 percent. In its 30-year strategy, Infrastructure Victoria published last week He proposed the government build 60,000 new social homes in well-serviced suburbs over the next 15 years to address the state’s affordable housing shortage.

A state government spokesman said the townhouse and low-rise building regulations were only published six months ago and it would take time for its full impact to flow through the system.

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“The best way to make housing fairer for young Victorians is to build more homes, and Victoria is building and approving more homes than any other state,” the spokesman said.

“We know it’s very difficult to build homes in our more established suburbs, so we’re overhauling our planning system so more Victorians can live close to jobs, transport and services.”

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