Within their releases, the Government points to external factors affecting the whole of the construction industry. But this is not a substitute for the control they have of the policy levers currently used to restrict where new homes can be built across Victoria.
Despite the crisis caused by endless urban sprawl, the Government continues not to pull the levers to enable more homes around existing infrastructure. Restrictive zoning continues to plague our highest-amenity areas, locking families out of the places where they most want to live.
As per the Government's own modelling, denser housing supply in high-amenity areas will help reduce rents across the board—an essential goal of any robust housing and planning policy.
These extra resources the Government has committed to planning reform needs to deliver meaningful results this year—not just more reports and recommendations. We can change the planning scheme before Christmas if we were committed to ending unnecessary and restrictive planning rules.
YIMBY Melbourne supports the government's allocation of $20 million over the past year for "boosting planning resourcing". However, the result of this boost must be more than just clearing the backlog created by the system's own inefficiencies.
The Allan Government must utilise this funding, within the context of the $107 million housing agenda spending, to undertake meaningful reforms that ensure this backlog does not occur again.
This means broad upzoning that permits medium density housing across our entire state, decreasing planning complexity, and increasing certainty for all stakeholders.
To avoid another crisis, systemic simplicity is key. That means stronger codification, less discretionary permitting, and fewer arbitrary decisions being made at every stage of the housing pipeline.
The Victorian Government has made it clear that the state's construction industry is at capacity. We need additional capacity so that new housing, including social housing which we are pleased to see the government continue to fund, can be delivered quickly to those Victorians most in-need.
In a housing crisis, it is the federal government's role to ensure that labour shortages are remedied quickly through a clear and targeted skilled migration program for tradies.
YIMBY Melbourne looks forward to seeing the Albanese Government begin undertaking these urgent reforms within next week's Federal Budget.
"It's great to see our slogan - building more homes where people want to live - as a header in the budget, but that can't just be all it is. Words need to be backed by action and the government needs to deliver real reform to live up to them."
"Government has the power to get new housing moving across Victoria tomorrow. It's time to see action on these key reforms, and an end to the delays."
"Planning reforms must result in less time spent in meetings and doing paperwork—not more. We don't need more new systems: we need fewer systems, and we need those few systems to be robust."
"Our planning system is too complex, too bureaucratic and too slow. There’s too many systems for anyone to navigate and every one of those systems, every one of those delays, adds to the cost of new housing. Costs that drive up the price of homes in the middle of a housing crisis."
"These systems don’t work for anyone. They don’t work for residents, they don’t work for developers, they don’t work for renters and first home buyers desperate for a place to live. They only work to stop new housing being built where people want to live."