How to build 1.2 million homes in 5 years

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Delivering at scale will require increasing density and incentivising site amalgamation around transport hubs, where institutional and large developers, plus student accommodation and Build-to-Rent operators and developers, will play a critical role.

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To meet this housing target in the next 5 years will clearly require a step change. Based on a business-as-usual approach though, delivering high density housing can easily take 7-10 years.

Urbis Apartment Essentials Data shows that the median timeframe from lodging a development application to completion for large apartment projects with more than 200 units is 4.9 years (based on projects completed in last 5 years in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Perth). In many cases this timeframe follows years of pre-planning at the rezoning or precinct planning stage.

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We also need to reduce barriers to the delivery of medium density housing, especially low rise typologies, that can be delivered more nimbly by smaller and medium scale developers and builders.

If the implementation of the National Planning Reform Blueprint is conducted at the same pace of planning reform we have seen over the past decade, it could easily take more than 5 years to see the type of changes we need to support substantial new housing delivery.

The National Planning Reform Blueprint is an important recommendation, but our Governments should be agile when implementing this reform, like they were during the COVID pandemic, in order to see outcomes on the ground within 5 years.