Evolving a planning approach to the provision of affordable housing:
An exploration of potential policy directions for achieving affordable housing outcomes

George Earl (Bond University)
Completion Year: 2007
 

Project Summary
Access to appropriate Affordable housing enables individuals, families and communities to contribute to the social and economic wellbeing of a country. The well being of communities is reinforced within the purpose of the Integrated Planning Act 1997 (IPA) and in particular its definition of ecological sustainability.
 

It is, therefore, important that a range of housing options is available to meet diverse community housing needs, as failure to provide appropriate Affordable Housing can lead to increased levels of stress experienced by individuals and families, compromise employment participation and threaten economic prosperity.
 

Today’s climate of increasing population growth, decreasing household sizes, and a booming resource industry has created unprecedented demand for housing in Australia, especially in the resource-rick economies of Queensland and Western Australia.
In November 2006, Queensland Community Housing Coalition Ltd, Bond University-School of Sustainable Development and LandPartners entered into a joint venture agreement to produce an industry research paper based on the following objectives:

• To identify how the planning system in Queensland impacts on housing affordability and its supply.
• To engage stakeholders, through separate focus group sessions in order to identify common ground in relation to planning issues and Affordable Housing.
• To conduct a literature review of examples identified by the Focus Groups as successful in the provision of Affordable Housing.
• To examine regulatory planning tools and incentive based options in providing Affordable Housing.
• To develop recommendations for planning reform.

Given the divergence of stakeholder interests, it is important to note that while this project has not sought to build a consensus position, it has attempted to find common ground.
 

The report identifies four main areas where Government intervention could significantly improve the provision of affordable housing. These include:

• Land supply
• Standardisation and improvement of the planning process
• Layered sub concessions
• Progressive headworks and infrastructure charges.

   

Within the next 20 years, state and local government agencies are planning for 550,000 new homes to be built in South East Queensland (South East Queensland Regional Plan 2005-2006) through a combination of green-field and brown field developments in designated urban footprint areas.
 

However, land supply modeling for south east Queensland conducted by MacroPlan (summary report-Australian land Supply Study, January 2007, Property Council of Australia) shows that current rates of land provision (2005-2006) will result in a shortfall of 1,597 lots whilst forecast rates of land provision (2005-2006) will result in a shortfall of 86,174 housing lots, by far the most significant of all the states in Australia.
 

Unfortunately, this mismatch of supply and demand of land is already evidenced by the escalation in residential property prices throughout Queensland - and indeed the rest of Australia – which has resulted in many individuals in the low-to-middle income bracket being unable to afford appropriate housing.
 

Current piecemeal proposals and policies to encourage the development of Affordable Housing have not resulted in a much needed systemic solution.