Wednesday, August 19, 2009
HOUSE PRICES – AND WHY GLENN STEVENS IS RIGHT TO BE WORRIED
Thursday, August 6, 2009
INTERVIEW WITH A PLANNING MINISTER
Planning Minister: Thank you, and might I say I am very proud to tell you about how much planning we’ve actually been doing. The plans are very comprehensive, and have been painstakingly developed over many years, so they’re extremely comprehensive and we’re very very proud of what we’ve done.
Thank you Minister, but what’s actually involved?
That’s an excellent question. As I’ve said, these plans are comprehensive and the result of extensive public, industry and stakeholder consultation. The plans cover a wide area of planning – I can assure the people of this State that no stone’s been left untouched by any of this planning. So what’s involved is a very comprehensive plan for planning the future of our region.
Yes Minister, but what does the plan actually contain?
I’m sorry, but you possibly don’t understand what’s involved ...
Clearly not.
Well let me say the plan has actually been refreshed and recharged and we’ve done away with the dated, inappropriate plans of the past and replaced them with a whole new set of plans for the future that ...
... contain what exactly?
I’m not sure your listeners would appreciate your line of questioning. Look, it’s a very comprehensive plan – in fact, there’s more than just one plan in case you didn’t get that message. We have plans for every contingency, for every possible scenario, based on the extensive review of our planning and consultation with leading industry and public groups. In fact, it’s fair to say we’ve never had so many plans available for so many contingencies and interests that have been, in themselves, very comprehensively planned out. The Premier has told me she’s 100 per cent behind these plans and what they mean for our region.
Does she know what’s in them?
Don’t be flippant with me, of course she does, she’s a very well-informed Premier, who’s been fully briefed on all of our planning activities and the plans themselves and the consultation process and understands that these are the best plans we’ve seen for a long, long time in this great State...
Can I change the subject for a moment?
Provided you don’t miss the point about our planning. I welcome any enquiry into our planning!
Minister, your Department employs many hundreds of public servants in the planning field. Are the public getting value for money?
Of course! (laughs). Haven’t you seen all the plans they’ve produced?
But what are the plans for? I mean, why all this planning? What’s it for, where’s it leading?
Because (irritably) you HAVE to have plan for things, you can’t just let growth happen all willy-nilly without a decent planning framework. And let me also say, which is something you need to appreciate: planning takes planning. You can’t just produce the sort of plans we’ve produced without lots of carefully thought out planning for the plans. It’s a subtle point sometimes lost on a cynical media, but producing good planning is an investment in our future and that in itself needs to carefully planned out, which I’m sure your listeners would fully want.
Minister, we’re running short on time. Can I wrap this up by asking what has actually been DONE with these plans and all this planning?
Done? I’m sorry?
Yes Minister, what’s actually been done?
Oh, I see, well that’s easy to explain, you’ll need to redirect your question – you see, I’m the “Planning” Minister, the “doing” is not part of my portfolio. But when anyone is ready to do anything, absolutely anything, I promise you we have the plans! I’m very proud of that.
Minister, I’m afraid we’ve run out of time – that’s all we have time for today.
You should have planned that better then, shouldn’t you?
Thank you Minister.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Planning Never Never Land?
The release last week of the revised South East Queensland Regional Plan brings into focus many issues, but one central assumption – that infill housing targets can accommodate future population growth in existing urban areas – suggests this plan might have about as much chance of realistically being achieved as Peter Pan being told to ‘think happy thoughts’ so he can fly.
The revised SEQ Regional Plan attempts to ‘manage’ the growth of south east
Setting aside any critique of ‘smart growth’ policies and their impact on housing choice and costs, the attempt to contain future growth in SEQ into existing urban areas is perhaps the most contentious aspect of the SEQ Regional Plan. Put simply, it is hard to see how the numbers stack up.
The targets.
The plan proposes that half of all new residents are to be accommodated in existing urban areas via infill housing (medium to high density). Within the City of
For south east
That’s a lot of units. Some back of envelope sums are helpful here. Imagine a twenty level highrise unit block, with four units per floor. That’s 80 units. The 138,000 dwellings infill target, if it was all delivered as 20 storey highrise buildings, would equate to 1,725 such twenty storey unit towers across
For south east
Now the SEQ Regional Plan makes precious little comment about how the planners expect this scale of infill to actually be delivered. It’s a bit like envisaging a Dubai-scale apartment boom right here in
Does this sound like a plan, or are we being asked to think happy thoughts?
So where will they go?
The revised SEQ Regional plan does at least suggest that there are some preferred areas for infill development activity, particularly around transit nodes – which makes sense. Transit oriented development exploits existing public transport infrastructure (however overtaxed it may already be) and mixed use development to create work-live-shop-play environments. It can be tremendously successful, and
But bring the issue of scale back into focus – the hypothetical 1,725 apartment towers are for accommodation only. They do not include additional requirements for more office space, more retail space, more schools, hospitals, medical centres etc – it’s a long list.
Chermside, Indooroopilly, Carindale and Upper Mt Gravatt are some of the activity centres expected under the plan to accommodate this frenzy of building activity over the next twenty years. But within these centres, the plan again is silent on precisely where the activity is to take place. It seems fair to ask the question: have the proponents of this plan at any stage pulled out a map and decided which entire suburban blocks are to be demolished to make way for the 1,725 apartment towers needed for infill development, or is there some new approach to infill which somehow creates new development sites in built out neighbourhoods?
The credibility gap is actually much wider than this. Infill housing is usually delivered as a mix of medium (townhouse style) to high density. Medium density projects by nature occupy a larger footprint than a high rise tower. So the reality of the numbers is that the foorprint needed to achieve the infill targets will be much greater than our hypothetical 1,725 towers in
Where exactly are these sites? I’ve had a good look at Chermside, Indooroopilly, Carindale and Upper Mount Gravatt, and even the wonders of Google Earth don’t reveal vast hectares of vacant land adjoining transit nodes just waiting to be developed as housing.
Has anyone asked the people?
The physical impossibility of the target numbers being delivered is one fatal flaw of the SEQ Regional Plan, and will remain so until the plan’s proponents explain – in precise detail – where and how these numbers will be delivered. Only with that sort of street by street analysis of available land can the credibility gap be closed.
But then there’s another, significant gap in all this. The SEQ Regional Plan proposes perhaps the most fundamental change in the way of life and urban environment for
The reality is the community are highly likely to object strenuously to dozens of 20 storey towers appearing in their neighbourhood. Jim Soorley was once savaged by the Liberals for proposing a ‘sardine city’ but his ambitions for infill were miniscule compared to what the SEQ Regional Plan now proposes. The scale of community objection to the infill targets of the SEQ Regional Plan, once the community realises, could be sufficient to unseat local Councillors or State MPs, and the prospect of that is another fatal flaw for the plan. Politically, it is hard to see how it could ever be delivered.
Then there are other market realities to deal with. Families overwhelmingly prefer detached housing and backyards for the kids, so even if deprived of housing choice, will there be a big enough market to buy all the units and townhouses proposed? There’s an issue of cost also – high to medium density is expensive to deliver, inflated by infrastructure levies and build costs. So will there enough people who could afford to buy all the units and townhouses proposed? There’s an issue of planning polarity, in that while the SEQ Regional Plan is a state instrument adamant on infill, many local council planning schemes don’t support it. Once again, how that tension will be resolved adds yet another wedge to the credibility gap.
Never land?
Is it possible that such a comprehensive planning scheme which purports to deliver on so many noble objectives (preservation of open space, quality of life etc) actually failed to do the most basic maths on the key assumptions that underpin it? And if that maths was done, why is the plan silent on the answers?
The questions are already being asked and the answers are not forthcoming. At the end of the day, unless and until the Plan’s authors and proponents can answer the physical realities of ‘where’ and ‘how’ in fine detail, site by site, street by street and neighbourhood by neighbourhood, the SEQ Regional Plan is suffering a yawning credibility gap from day one.
In the meantime, a region with a demonstrable housing shortage could find the shortages worsen, affordability deteriorate and growth – the economy’s engine room – falter.
And that doesn’t sound like much of a plan.
[If you haven’t searched through the SEQ Regional Plan for all the details yet, this is a good place to start: Chapter 8 on ‘Compact Settlement’ sets it out. You can find it here - http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/resources/plan/SEQ/regional-plan-2009/seq-regional-plan-2009-part-d-dro-08.pdf ]