Housing, Boundaries and Cash for New Homes

Last Wednesday, the Herald Sun published an article reporting the Planning Minister's firmer stance on maintaining the Urban Growth Boundary of Melbourne. It states "Planning Minister Matthew Guy said Melbourne had reached its geographical limits and the days of expanding the urban growth boundary were over."

 Instead, the focus will shift to regional towns, with the minister claiming "Twenty years from now, if you want to live in a house-and-land-style market, that's going to be outside Melbourne" .  This is part of a push for Victoria to become a 'state of cities' rather than a 'city state'. Decentralisation is not new in Victoria.  But what will it accomplish this time?

With this stance on the UGB, it's also intended that "Melbourne will need to accommodate greater density in defined areas".  Yep, there you go - the 'd' word.  But how does this fit with yesterday's announcement that first home owners buying new homes will get a monetary bonus, whilst those buying established homes miss out?

Currently, the deal is First Home Buyers get $7,000 for both new and established homes.  As of July 1, those buying new homes will get $10,000 whilst the $7,000 currently offered for established homes will be scrapped (although stamp duty savings of up to 50% will be applied for all first home buyers).   

So essentially this is adding a $10,000 incentive to buy a new home.  Where are the new homes in Melbourne?  In the growth areas. Where are the jobs, services and infrastructure?  Not in growth areas (generally).  So it seems that this policy will likely encourage the sprawl that the Minister hopes to quell with his latest comments on the UGB.  It also goes against the objectives of the Metro Strategy which seek to realise potential in middle ring suburbs, and promote a '20 minute city'.

The justification for the incentive is more and cheaper housing - though this is not based on any evidence. The treasurer was quoted "Increasing the First Home Owner Grant on newly constructed properties and boosting the stamp duty concession will make the dreams of many young Victorians become a reality sooner".  Really? Is it really our dream to contribute to urban sprawl and the lifestyles that come with it?

Read the Herald Sun article about the UGB and decentralisation here.  Read more on the 'budget boost for new homes' here.

Thanks Adam Rossimel (Harlock Jackson) for sending through the Herald Sun article!

A Neighbourhood So Exclusive it's Empty

This NY Times article describes the crazy expensive region of London, Belgravia, where despite containing thoroughly sought after property, no one is using it. "Almost no one seemed to be coming home. Perhaps half the windows were dark."

What has happened in Belgravia? Well this cartoon sums it up pretty simply; owners and tenants are displaced by 'international oligarchs who don't actually bother to live there'.  The properties are bought up by the mega rich, who have several other properties, so only live there some of the time, contributing to the emptiness of these areas.

What I think is interesting about this, is that is adds an extra step to the gentrification cycle - a transition from 'bankers' (read high socioeconomic status) to 'international oligarchs' (read international, super high socioeconomic status). It highlights a really strange scenario where the most sought after places to live can become places where people do not actually live.  Looks like such a swish area, with beautiful squares, close to parks, and a great central location - with so many underused properties, I wonder if anyone over that way needs a house sitter?

Read more here. See the cartoon here.

A Match Made in CitiNiche

'Who knows better what a residential development needs than its residents?'

This question underpins a new venture, CitiNiche, which aims to match people who share common interests and preferences firstly with each other, and also with a design team, to provide them more bespoke housing tailored to their needs.

The website explains:

"With large corporate developers increasingly dominating the property development industry, the range of living choices has become more generic, with little or no consultation of the individual (who ultimately funds construction) in the planning phase. CitiNiche helps you determine your housing, giving you an avenue to voice your ideas, so you can shape your life and the community you live in."

It does this through crowd-sourcing. The website invites people to join 'niches' with others who may have similar preferences, such as space for pets, an emphasis on urban agriculture, larger sized apartments, loft-style living and even an 'empty slate' option where you get simply a shell to customise later.  Or, you could start your own niche in whatever strikes your fancy (you could seriously have some fun with this!).

Once you've picked your niche, you can share ideas, which are followed by design teams.  When enough group members are on board (though no indication as to how many is 'enough'), they are invited to workshop their ideas together with potential designers.  If you're interested in progressing from that point, the cash comes into it - time to pay a 'small' refundable deposit.  Only once planning approval is in the bag is when you seriously have to reach into yours and commit.

So the residents get a tailored design solution, and the chance to more meaningfully participate in the design process, and the developers get something too - their market is already there, which reduces part of the risk of the development.

It'll be interesting to see how this gets going over here.  I really like the idea of being able to have a say in the kind of housing you want from the design stage - this idea does seem to depart from traditional development theories based on market projections, and I think this will encourage diversity and creativity if it takes off.  There's already a site marked out for potential development in the Docklands, so hopefully we can see how it progresses.

Thanks to Adam Smith from Harvest for the info. Read more about the project on the CitiNiche website.

Melbourne's Public Housing Debate

Melbourne's public housing has been a hot topic of conversation in the newspapers lately. At the core of this is the question, should our public housing estates be redeveloped to include a mix of public and private housing?  According to The Age, the brief also includes proposals for commercial development on space within the estates.  The article also mentions that the estates mentioned in the brief are in North Richmond and Fitzroy - some seriously valuable inner urban real estate.

Mixing private and public housing is not new.  This has already been put into practice in developments in Melbourne, such as Kensington.  The theory is that social integration removes the stigma often attached to public housing and can improve the condition of the neighbourhood.  According to a paper from the University of NSW, the fundamental argument for mixing public and private housing is that "by reducing concentrations  of disadvantaged residents through tenure mix the  dysfunctional behaviours associated with a concentration of poverty are dissipated".  The paper goes on to say that when this is used as a strategy by Governments, without thorough consultation with tenants and 'high quality' urban planning, it can often fail, or have a negative effect.  Read more both in support and against this theory here and here.

In the latest proposal, it is suggested that no public dwellings will be lost (or relocated), however, to make a 50/50 mix of public and private residents, and to include potential commercial space, there are concerns that open space on site will be lost.  Concerns have also been raised about the motives of the redevelopment.

This proposal opens up a whole range of questions; is it about social integration to create more cohesive cities?  Is it an attempt to bring in more cash?  How much open space is enough on these estates? And surely each estate is different, and what suits one could be a problem in another.  Will an individual approach be taken into account?  To what extent will the community have a say in the process?

The brief itself was leaked to the press, it's not publicly available.  Click here for the original article in The Age, and subsequent ones here and here.  Here is some info on the earlier Kensington Estate redevelopment.