Our cities need more housing that is both affordable and improves how our cities function, while also offering a lifestyle that is actually attractive to Australians.
Hi Riley, I'm enjoying your housing articles. There is some "spice" that's for sure. Here's a quote from a reply I posted on LinkedIn recently --- "The very, very hard truth is that there was a community, city, village, built form before you arrived. And that where you live now was once different from today and it will change again whether you like it or not. To this end, what you value today may not have been valued by previous generations and may not be valued by future generations." --- We urgently need many of the changes you are writing about if we are to have quality cities that are liveable and affordable. In Brisbane in particular, where like you, I also work in planning and development, there is a vital need to change policies around multiple residential, parking and character protections, to name just a few. One specific example is that we need a townhouse or "plexes" development code/s instead of the one multiple dwelling code that attempts to paint all multiple res development in the City with the same brush. It's ridiculous.
Thanks for reading Brian - couldn’t agree more and what’s worrying is that I don’t see any sign of things changing - if anything we’re going in the wrong direction. There has been some optimistic progress on YIMBY issues in the US, but the Australia cultural expectation of the suburban lifestyle is so deeply-engrained I rather pessimistically think things will need to get much worse before they get better.
As appealing as the free market solution is, in the inner suburbs we also need to restrict the development of huge apartment complexes comprised of tiny apartments. The missing middle needs to develop more dense housing that can accommodate the average Australian family.
Totally agree. I think one of the biggest reasons Australians do not buy apartments or townhouses is because of their size and general quality and amenity. I'd love to see some better typologies actually delivered that aims at enticing the average Australian away from suburbia.
Given you are a Queenslander, there was a provision in one of the Queensland Transport Act (I can't recall which one now), that gave them the statutory right to dictate the density around transport nodes. I never saw it used by QT and I wonder if it still exists, but it did live sometime around the late 1990s / early 2000s.
Very interesting! I'd be very very keen to see that if you come across it - I can only assume it's been superseded because there's been no rezoning etc around most of the rapid transport network or even the south-eastern busway.
I might do a deep dive to try and find it, but I recall at the time this was a radical proposal (communist even!) that got absolute zero publicity by the State Government or push back from interest groups. I suspect that the responsible Public Servant was told to take a bex and good lie down and we will amend that later. I think it was the Transport Infrastructure Act.
Hi Riley, I'm enjoying your housing articles. There is some "spice" that's for sure. Here's a quote from a reply I posted on LinkedIn recently --- "The very, very hard truth is that there was a community, city, village, built form before you arrived. And that where you live now was once different from today and it will change again whether you like it or not. To this end, what you value today may not have been valued by previous generations and may not be valued by future generations." --- We urgently need many of the changes you are writing about if we are to have quality cities that are liveable and affordable. In Brisbane in particular, where like you, I also work in planning and development, there is a vital need to change policies around multiple residential, parking and character protections, to name just a few. One specific example is that we need a townhouse or "plexes" development code/s instead of the one multiple dwelling code that attempts to paint all multiple res development in the City with the same brush. It's ridiculous.
Thanks for reading Brian - couldn’t agree more and what’s worrying is that I don’t see any sign of things changing - if anything we’re going in the wrong direction. There has been some optimistic progress on YIMBY issues in the US, but the Australia cultural expectation of the suburban lifestyle is so deeply-engrained I rather pessimistically think things will need to get much worse before they get better.
As appealing as the free market solution is, in the inner suburbs we also need to restrict the development of huge apartment complexes comprised of tiny apartments. The missing middle needs to develop more dense housing that can accommodate the average Australian family.
Totally agree. I think one of the biggest reasons Australians do not buy apartments or townhouses is because of their size and general quality and amenity. I'd love to see some better typologies actually delivered that aims at enticing the average Australian away from suburbia.
Good stuff. I like the name The Missing Middle - makes it sound like we need it!
But what happened to the heroic defender of Albany Creek?
Rock over Albany Creek, Rock on Bridgeman Downs
Given you are a Queenslander, there was a provision in one of the Queensland Transport Act (I can't recall which one now), that gave them the statutory right to dictate the density around transport nodes. I never saw it used by QT and I wonder if it still exists, but it did live sometime around the late 1990s / early 2000s.
Very interesting! I'd be very very keen to see that if you come across it - I can only assume it's been superseded because there's been no rezoning etc around most of the rapid transport network or even the south-eastern busway.
I might do a deep dive to try and find it, but I recall at the time this was a radical proposal (communist even!) that got absolute zero publicity by the State Government or push back from interest groups. I suspect that the responsible Public Servant was told to take a bex and good lie down and we will amend that later. I think it was the Transport Infrastructure Act.
Haha I suspect you are right about that