Property Council ACT & Capital Region Executive Director Ashlee Berry said the passage of the Planning (Missing Middle Housing) Amendment Bill was an important step towards making Canberra’s planning system faster and more focused on housing delivery.
“This is good, practical reform that makes it easier to turn Canberra’s new Missing Middle planning rules into actual homes,” Ms Berry said.
“We welcomed these changes when they were introduced because there is little point giving people the right to build more homes if the process for subdivision, consolidation and changing a Crown lease remains unnecessarily slow or complicated.”
The legislation will reduce assessment timeframes for smaller-scale subdivisions and consolidations from 60 working days to 30-45 working days, create automatic entitlement for secondary residences on single-dwelling Crown leases, and provide a streamlined 10-day pathway for minor Crown lease variations, including changes to permitted dwelling numbers.
“These are exactly the sort of nuts-and-bolts changes that can make the difference between good housing policy on paper and homes being delivered on the ground,” Ms Berry said.
“The Property Council has consistently argued that zoning reform alone will not deliver the homes Canberra needs. We also need to remove unnecessary duplication and delay and create the right conditions to allow projects to proceed.
“Missing Middle projects are particularly sensitive to uncertainty, duplication and delay and streamlining the system will help improve feasibility and encourage participation from a broader range of developers, builders and property owners.
“The Government deserves credit for continuing the job of Missing Middle reform rather than stopping at the zoning changes, but the ultimate measure of success won’t be how many planning rules we change. It will be how many additional homes are approved, commenced, and completed.
“The passage of this Bill is a positive step, but the broader conversation about housing can’t stop at planning reform. Canberra still needs to tackle the feasibility, investment and delivery challenges standing between an approval and a completed home.”
Those challenges will be front and centre at the Property Council’s Capital Region Housing Summit on 17 November, bringing government, industry and community leaders together to focus on practical solutions to boost housing delivery across the ACT and Capital Region.
