HIA calls out worst states for home approvals owing to planning delays
Planning gridlock is impacting the ability to get homes on the ground, according to the Housing Industry Association, and now the organisation is naming the states it sees as the worst offenders.
The organisation has voiced the need for “significant planning reform”, arguing that the bottleneck around house approvals is driving home owners to stay in rentals longer and “exacerbating Australia’s worsening house and rental shortages”.
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Though HIA supported the government’s National Planning Reform Blueprint drafted last year, the industry body emphasised that 12 months on from the blueprint’s initial issuing, it has “yet to see the dial on approvals improve”.
HIA executive director of planning and development, Mike Hermon, said that planning systems across the country are “buckling under the weight of current approvals let alone addressing the necessary 40 per cent increase of housing that Australia desperately needs”.
“Under current systems across the country if you put in an application for a new home or major renovation today, you are unlikely to start this side of Christmas with standard house approvals taking well in excess of six months,” he said.
To identify and address these shortcomings, the HIA has released a Planning Blueprint Scorecard to evaluate the delivery and execution of the government’s planning reform measures across the nation’s states and territories.
The HIA scorecard provides an “analysis and aggregated scoring system” highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the planning systems in each state and territory against the key reforms identified in the National Planning Reform Blueprint.
Under the HIA’s analysis, South Australia and Western Australia’s planning systems fared the best, tying for equal first with aggregate scores of 3 out of 5.
Within the middle rankings, the ACT recorded an aggregate score of 2.5 out of 5, while Tasmania and Victoria both received scores of 2.
But it was NSW, the Northern Territory and Queensland that came out on the bottom, with all three tying for equal lowest, ranking 1.5 out of 5.
HIA cited that building figures for NSW between 2019 and 2023 indicate the “most significant national shortfall” in delivering the state’s share of 1.2 million home target”.
In addressing the state’s obstacles, the industry body advised that NSW must ensure a “continuous supply of serviced and development-ready land” to deliver new homes at affordable prices, and rectify the “intergovernmental complexities of the NSW Planning system which result in inefficiencies, delays and extra costs for home buyers”.
Despite describing Queensland’s planning system as “generally adequate”, the HIA relayed the state must improve its approach to application by “cutting red tape to provide for faster decisions” through reducing regulatory barriers to delivering new homes.
Contrastingly, the NT’s planning system was criticised for lacking “strong strategic direction and objectives to guide residential development”, to which the HIA stated the territory must develop and implement an infrastructure delivery program that will “fast track the delivery of shovel-ready land”.
Emphasising that “no state has scored greater than a 3 out of 5 on progressing these key reforms”, Hermon further stressed the need for “bold leadership by all tiers of governments to solve the planning and housing conundrum”.
“HIA’s Planning Blueprint Scorecard sets out important initiatives to progress the necessary reforms to get shovel-ready land delivered faster and ultimately resulting in more slabs poured on the ground to fast track getting Australians into much-needed housing,” he said.