Friday, 23 January 2026

In this Edition...

1. Quarter time for the National Housing Accord – commencements and completions lift but are well off targets

2. SMH says social engineers should dictate what gets built, where!

3. Channel 7 exposes NIMBY tactic of an "interim heritage order"

... and much, much more.

4. Low Rise Pattern Book underachieving
5. More food for thought in latest OECD report on the Australian economy
6. Waverley Council staff opposition to seniors housing shows the difficulties of effecting cultural change in bureaucracies
7. Multiplex delivers another stunning building for Sydney
8. Members in the news

1. Quarter time at the National Housing Accord – commencements and completions lift but are well off targets

The ABS's latest report on housing commencements and completions, which now covers the first quarter of the National Housing Accord (15 months into a 60 month/5-year Accord).

And while housing commencements and completions are ticking up, they are still a long way off where they should be. If this was quarter time at the footy, the oranges would be tasting bitter, the fans would be restless and the coach demanding greater effort.

Under the National Housing Accord, the pro-rata new housing completions target for Australia for the first 15 months was 300,000 completed new dwellings. Despite some improvement, the first 15 months saw only 218,974 new dwelling completed across Australia. That’s a deficit of 81,000 homes.

The picture is similar for NSW – key performance indicators are lifting, but there is a long way to go to get close to the Accord targets.

The two largest challenges are a lack of Federal support for housing-enabling infrastructure, and a high level of taxes on housing that is applied by the states, particularly in NSW. The upcoming State and Federal budgets are an opportunity for both the Albanese and Minns Governments to ensure approvals can convert more strongly into housing starts.

The Australian and The Daily Telegraph followed our analysis, and the message for the Albanese Government is to start seriously backing the housing targets they set by delivering more housing-enabling infrastructure:

CEO Tom Forrest also spoke with Radio Station 2SM about what was needed to lift the housing commencement game:

2. SMH says social engineers should dictate what gets built, where!

Well-meaning market interventions helped create the housing supply crisis (see last year’s top selling book Abundance) in ways those responsible could never have predicted.

One would have thought that at least some lessons may have been learnt, and that regulators and planning authorities might try to work with the market rather than dictate terms in an effort to tick political boxes. Economic credibility can't be abandoned because it's not politically popular.

An article in this week’s SMH  expressed support for the retention of apartment blocks (glorious examples of concrete cancer ridden brutalist social housing towers with all the character of post war Poland) which had reached the end of their economic life, are costly to maintain, have poor acoustic wind and heat performance, and frankly start to raise a range of safety issues for their residents, a the basis that they were meeting a market for low cost housing (the rooms were so small they would not meet modern ADG standards - but no mention of that in the article).

This building ranks with that other brutalist blight on the cityscape of Sydney – that perpetrated by no less that the City of Sydney themselves with their horrific Town Hall office tower.

Bad and worse: the Chimes Building at Potts Point and Town Hall House Sydney

Overall, we need to see housing supply increase - but on any individual development, it is up to the owner to determine how to best meet market demand. That is what the Planning Authorities have sensibly determined in this case of the apartment block at Potts Point – now subject to a community campaign.  

There is high demand for larger apartments (3 and four bedrooms) as families are increasing choosing apartment living. Any new apartment must meet modern building codes and standards.  It costs a lot to replace a post WWII concrete apartment block.

The private sector, taking all the risk, assesses market conditions and responds accordingly.

If Councils are that opposed to the outcome in terms of the number of smaller dwellings, they should work with the private sector – one option would be to increase the height significantly to allow for more homes. The proposed development includes affordable housing.

Placing random controls on housing supply risks market collapse and then you must rely on the government to step in. If you really want to see a housing supply crisis, do that!

We are starting to see councils like City of Sydney and Woollahra jump on this issue and start trying to dictate how the market should respond in these situations. While City of Sydney charges down this path for social engineering considerations, Woollahra have realised this could be another tactic to block development and are considering their own DCP.

It is ironic that both councils get het up over these situations and simply shrug shoulders when it is revealed that they are not delivering the housing required under their individual housing targets.

For City of Sydney – 5,355 new homes should have been approved to keep up with the Accord targets – they have ticked off a mere 1,805.

For Woollahra – only 183 approvals have been issued in the Accord period against the 538 approvals needed to keep pace with the targets.

We stand by our claims that the issues being raised by objectors involve a degree of confected outrage designed to appeal to a particular voting bloc.

With a state election little more than a year away, and Council elections the year after, developers should not be collateral damage for those with a political axe to grind.

The SMH, once known as the “journal of record”, would do better by considering both sides of the story. The property market is complex. Far more so than a simple “pub test.” 

3. Channel 7 exposes NIMBY tactic of an "interim heritage order”

Channel 7 News Sydney spoke to Urban Taskforce CEO Tom Forrest over the weekend on the concerning tactic of a number of North Shore councils seeking to impose interim heritage orders (IHOs) as a way of delaying or stopping housing.

Mosman Council (surprise, surprise!) is the latest council to roll out a dubious IHO in order to thwart or delay development.

The “usual suspects” have notorious form – Woollahra Councillors have previously stated that IHO’s are a “key weapon to block development”, while the North Sydney Mayor ignored her own council advice and slapped an IHO on low rise housing near Military Road. Now Mosman (the council that approved 2 new dwellings in the latest ABS data for the month of November) has imposed an interim heritage order on a house in Mosman.

Both councils often seem to be making it up as they go: neither site had been identified as worthy of heritage protection in the past. But suddenly, it is seen as a useful weapon to stop housing supply.

The impact of the IHO is significant for the private sector.  It stops development stone cold dead while the IHO is worked through. This is a cynical exercise designed to financially punish developers and send a warning sign to everyone else who is considering delivering more anyone down more housing in prestigious parts of Sydney.

Urban Taskforce CEO Tom Forrest told 7NEWs Sydney the impact of these orders:

The NIMBYs also continue to trot out the same old “we need housing, but …” line.

i.e. nowhere near Mosman ... if you listen to Ms L'Estrange

Fortunately, the Planning Minister sent a clear message through his comments to 7NEWS Sydney – bluntly telling Councils to stop abusing their powers under the Heritage Act.

4. Low Rise Pattern Book underachieving

The Low Rise Pattern Book appears to be underdelivering, with the Daily Telegraph reporting that while 21,000 designs have been purchased (and for $1 each we are not surprised) – only 18 projects have been submitted for approval, 8 of those approved, and none have yet commenced.

More telling is that take up appears to be taking off in in other jurisdictions – with the Telegraph linking the lack of builders in NSW as holding back demand for the patterns and the lodgement of applications.

The Pattern Book designs are good and the planning pathways they open are great, but they are too prescriptive and there are too many opportunities for councils to rule them out in terms of low-rise development. The construction sector has not embraced the new pattern books and it is clear that more work needs to be done.

Urban Taskforce calls for an extension of the $1 purchase price for a further 12 months. If it was a dud at $1, a price rise to $1,000 will kill it!

With reports this week that more and more builders are looking to move to Queensland – which is about to embark on a pre-Olympics boom and with a far more attractive regulatory environment – this is a problem for NSW that is not going to go away for some time.

Labour shortages will continue to dampen construction activity - one reason why we need to attract more skilled and unskilled construction labour and take more of the risk out of residential construction here in NSW.

5. More food for thought in latest OECD report on the Australian economy

House prices and rents continue to outpace incomes, hitting hardest in Sydney, which also hampers labour mobility.

The report states that structural undersupply—rooted in land release delays, infrastructure gaps, and slow approvals—drives these pressures, more than short-term construction costs.

Planning and zoning restrictions are pinpointed as the core issue, limiting supply's ability to meet demand in high-growth areas. The OECD advocates flexible land-use rules, increased densities near jobs and transport hubs, and streamlined approvals to unlock both infill development and greenfield sites. Recent federal efforts like the National Housing Accord and National Planning Reform Blueprint earn praise, but uniform adoption of best-practice principles across states is vital for real impact.

The Minns Government should take some comfort in their decision to wrest more building approvals from local councils, with the report recommending that:

Stronger coordination between housing, transport, and infrastructure funding is also strongly urged, alongside clear dwelling targets and rigorous monitoring of local planning performance to guarantee timely supply growth.

While the report notes the improvements that have been made over recent years, there is much more that could be done. And a lot of this lies within the bailiwick of the Federal Government.

Let’s hope Treasurer Chalmers picks up on many of the issues raised in the report in the lead up to his next budget in May.

6. Waverley Council staff opposition to seniors housing shows the difficulties of effecting cultural change in bureaucracies

While a new broom is sweeping through Waverley Council – some cobwebs remain.

It would seem some Waverley Council staff continue business as usual - this time opposing a redevelopment that will deliver 231 seniors living apartments and a 105 bed aged care centre.

As we said back when the historic planning laws were passed late last year, cultural change was needed in council land, and this could take time. Waverley Council shows how entrenched old planning think is in many council offices.

With the recent Commonwealth population data showing Australia is ageing quickly, these are the sort of well-located seniors living developments Sydney and the nation needs. Fortunately, DPHI agreed, and has approved the proposal.

Waverley Council staff tried their darnedest to prevent the development, which has been in the planning stages for almost a decade – conjuring up a vision of octogenarians jumping in their cars and clogging up roads. Really? “Be patient with the elderly” is the message from the civic minded Urban Taskforce.

Local NIMBYs also appear to be raising the issue of need for a relocation of the men’s shed as a reason why more senior’s living should not proceed. While it can be accommodated in subsequent stages of the development, the NIMBYs were not happy with some heard complaining that this is where they make their signs opposing development!

7. Multiplex delivers another stunning building for Sydney

Finally open for business…

With the new Sydney Fish markets opened, Urban Taskforce lauded the skills and talent of the architects, engineers and builders responsible for the construction of the new facilities.

We singled out Multiplex as the head contractor for the delivery of the extremely complex new facility, co-ordinating and delivering every aspect of this magnificent new site.

Another impressive achievement for David Ghannoum and his team. When you add the new international airport at Badgerys Creek, along with the iconic AMP redevelopment at Quay Quarter, Multiplex is certainly help change the way Sydney looks and operates.

8. Members in the news

“… TURNER has promoted Janene Fowlstone to Associate Director. She joined TURNER twelve years ago and was promoted to Associate in 2016 … read more ...                                

Architecture & Design, 19 January

“… The land lease business pioneered in Australia by private operators – including Puljich’s own family – and a few listed ones, such as Ingenia Communities and Lifestyle Communities, has enjoyed an influx of capital as major players have seen the opportunity … read more ...                                

AFR, 21 January

“… Plans have been filed for an eight-storey building with a $51.9-million development cost at Neutral Bay by developer Central Element … read more ...                                

The Urban Developer, 22 January

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