Housing woes won’t go away without regional focus: Urban planners
Cities are often in the spotlight, but development in non-metro areas is equally important to creating the housing stock Australia desperately needs.
Sam George, principal and urban planner at Hatch, and Tim Trefry, partner at Hatch and fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, are urging policymakers and developers alike to prioritise planning in the country’s vast array of liveable towns.
In Sydney, for example, George noted that development of mid-rise and high-density dwellings will be well accounted for with the state’s plans to rezone areas around train stations.
But to deliver housing diversity, the state must adopt a “multipronged approach of mixed density solutions”.
“While affordable homes near metropolitan stations are vital, the nation should look beyond major cities to towns just a couple of hours from those cities where existing infrastructure and diverse housing could be built on to create thriving communities,” the engineering and development consultancy stressed.
As cost-of-living pressures bite, George noted that regional areas are proving more and more appealing to families seeking to own their own home, especially with hybrid work models enabling people to live farther away from their office hubs.
Within NSW, he cited Armidale, the Hunter Valley and Central Coast as areas that still offer prices that are “not only attainable, but [where] great infrastructure already exists”.
“And with the federal government announcing funding for 46 new local priority infrastructure projects throughout regional Australia, totalling $207 million as the first stage of the Growing Regions Program, the time has never been better for developers to turn their gaze away from the city capitals,” George said.
He cited the Huntlee master-planned community in the NSW Hunter Valley wine region, which Trefry was largely responsible for, as an example of how to build affordable and desirable communities in stunning yet still untapped regional pockets.
As Trefry discovered during that project, the financial fundamentals of such an undertaking can be just as lucrative as city centre projects that perhaps attract more attention.
“The sales figures show us there’s immense buyer appetite. With Huntlee set to deliver thousands of jobs and play an integral role in the local economy, it also tells us that intelligently designed master-planned communities in some of the nation’s lush but overlooked regions can more than just deliver affordable homes in the midst of a housing crisis, but revitalise entire towns and areas,” Trefry said.
With the right support, he said that large developments such as Huntlee could “increasingly play a vital role in the national affordable housing solution and a role in delivering sustainable and liveable places where families can thrive”.
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