As new home sales decline to levels last seen in December 2000 (according to the Housing Industry Association) and residential construction remains in the doldrums, Australia’s biggest property developers are pointing the finger of blame at councils for halting the approval of new developments.
In the last few months developers’ displeasure in dealing with councils appears to be growing faster than weeds in an abandoned development site.
It’s not surprising the issue is such a hot topic (ranking alongside concerns about housing affordability and interest rates) since council planning committees are a major barrier to developers transforming their master-planned communities and apartments from architect plans into bricks-and-mortar reality.
At its November investor road show in Queensland at the end of November, Stockland residential CEO Mark Hunter highlighted overcoming “high [development] approval hurdles” as one of the key challenges facing the company. According to Hunter, the hurdles are increasing, as are the “horror stories” about local council nimbyism (not in my backyard)” campaigns.
“In Sydney, councils are dictating the type of product they want. They are saying they want three-bedroom units. The fact market cannot afford them does not seem matter,” Hunter says.
Hunter’s complaints are echoed by Stockland CEO Matthew Quinn, who recently described the process of dealing with small councils in Sydney as something akin to a “nightmare”.
Two weeks later at a property lunch in Sydney, Meriton boss Harry Triguboff was beating a similar drum when talking about getting his new projects off the ground. Asked what had changed most about the market in his many years in the business, Triguboff quipped: “The fact that it takes so long to get approval from council.”
According to these same developers, the solution to the problem lies in amalgamating councils into regional “super councils” as occurred with the formation of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council in 2008 and the much older Brisbane City Council, which dates back to 1925 and is Australia’s largest metro council.
In October, following a legal challenge, Stockland won approval from the Sunshine Coast Regional Council for its enormous Caloundra South community project, which will be home to 50,000 residents over the next 20 years. Quinn noted that Stockland had “improved relations with super councils such as on the Sunshine Coast”.
Speaking alongside Triguboff at the same Sydney lunch, Dexus boss Victor Hoog Antink remarked that he had been “fortunate to grow up in Brisbane, which has the largest metro council in the country”.
“It’s a very efficient way to go,” Antlink said, backing “super councils” as the best opportunity to administer for economies of scale and to deliver “better professionalism”.
Calls for super councils have the support of lobbying groups such as the Urban Development Taskforce, which has lamented the inability of Australia to build enough new houses to meet the needs of the population.
In September, then CEO of the Urban Development Taskforce Aaron Gadiel blamed local councils and the state government for Sydney’s failure to build enough houses to meet the needs of the community. “Sydney is simply not producing enough new homes to accommodate even this low level of population growth. “In fact, no capital city produces less new homes per capita than Sydney,” he said at the time.
“The NSW government and local councils need to tackle the systematic problems in our planning system which is preventing our housing supply from meeting the community’s clear need.”
Gadiel’s replacement Chris Johnson says “larger planning units servicing various councils could ensure sufficient skill levels”.
Of course councils, planning authorities and residents may not quite see the value in having decisions about the look and feel of their communities made by a larger body, which may not have same degree of empathy or understanding of local issues or concerns.
And of course many may agree with this assessment made by the Planning Institute of Australia NSW in its submission to the state’s planning system review, where it called the system both “complex and dysfunctional”, but also one that rewards proponents “with the deepest pockets as opposed to those that propose change of the greatest merit”.
*This article first appeared on Property Observer
If there were more renters, there’d be fewer NIMBYists. Which helps to explain why home ownership is lauded and renting is frowned upon: home owners are said to make better citizens because they make better NIMBYists.
Geez these guys just have no shame. In the state notorious for bending over backwards, forward or any other of the 36 possible directions at the mere smell of brown paper, poor benighted and oppressed developers are doing it tough.
spare me.
We should judge this on its merits. If there’s the slightest chance it could mean getting rid of Leichhardt council in inner western Sydney, then bring it on 🙂
Councils are like our hospitals. They were run efficiently by local boards, with local people on them. (Councils were only ever meant to be a local run service provider, not a third level of Government for the State or Feds to micro manage or lives)
Then along came big Government. For Councils in the form of Gough Whitlam, who tried to take them over to give the feds powers they are not supposed to have. He failed in a referendum, so he started giving them tons of money to buy control.
This succeeded and started a downward spiral into the current Bureaucratic nightmare.
Councils became little fiefdoms after then being transformed into unaccountable corporate entities.
And an unconstitutional third tier of Government with illegal powers, to do the State and federal bureaucrats bidding.
After loosing a Second referendum in 1988 to legalise this third tier of Government. The referendum result was again ignored, and the local Government Act was passed to try to legitimise the unconstitutional form and powers councils now had. Like the Bible says, a servant cannot have two masters, let alone 3!
So the people have been slowly cut out of the process, and councillors have little real power now.
The State and Federal bureaucrats have been running the show for a long time now.
So, like hospitals, the answer is not giving the bureaucrats even more control and power. Its back to basics, back to the limited controls allowed by our constitution (ie little power to regulate private property), and putting local people back in the drivers seat.
Hope that makes things a little clearer?
It’s indicative of how removed from reality they are that they advocate yet another level of government…