frequently asked question

There are already so many apartments. Do we need more?

If you count apartments as a proportion of land use, rather than a proportion of dwellings, it becomes easy to see that we absolutely need more apartments.

One of the counterintuitive things to take into account when measuring a given area's dwelling composition is that a single apartment block, containing (for instance) a total of 50 apartments, can fit on the same amount of land as a single detached home.

This means that if 1 in 50 lots in an area is a medium-density build of 50 apartments, and the other 49 are single detached homes, the area will appear to have more than 50 per cent apartments. Increase this to 2 in 50 lots and two-thirds of the dwellings in an area are apartments.

As you can see in the chart above, just if 50-apartment blocks comprise just 10 per cent of the lots, apartments will comprise 85 per cent of the dwellings. 

So while there may be a lot of apartments compared to single detached homes, there are not a lot of apartment buildings

If you want to learn more about Melbourne's density deficit, we do a full analysis, comparing Melbourne to Paris, in our flagship report, Melbourne's Missing Middle.

Your hottest YIMBY Queries, Answered

Frequently Asked Questions

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Are YIMBYs aligned with any political parties?
Aren't Melbourne apartments low-quality? Why do you want more of them?
Aren't tax concessions the biggest cause of the housing crisis? Why focus on zoning and planning?
Can't we just keep building greenfield/outer suburban developments?
Can't we just stop foreign investment to combat the housing crisis?
Can't we just stop immigration to solve the housing crisis?
Do you support stronger renter protections?
Doesn't new development just push poor people out of the city?
Don't high permit approval rates show that planning isn't the issue?
How does market-rate housing supply benefit those most in need?
Isn't zoning and planning reform just a giveaway to developers?
Local councillors are democratically elected representatives. What’s wrong with them having final decision-making powers over planning matters?
Loosening planning controls may result in more ugly modern buildings. Shouldn't new buildings be beautiful?
Shouldn't the local community get the final say on what happens in their "backyard"?
There are already so many apartments. Do we need more?
What about parking? Won't new developments create massive congestion in our cities?
What about those one million vacant homes?
What can we do about land banking?
What if I don’t want to live in an apartment?
What's the problem with building setbacks?
Why build denser cities? Isn't it better to decentralise?
Why can't the government just build public housing for all?
Why did rental prices go up during COVID?
Why do you hold councils accountable for housing supply delivery?
Why does YIMBY Melbourne have such a problem with heritage overlays?
Why doesn't YIMBY Melbourne endorse mandatory inclusionary zoning?