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The Planning Institute Australia (PIA) lambasted the Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) report card for giving “high rankings for bad development”.
PIA CEO Matt Collins warned that the HIA’s four-point scorecard overlooks the importance of good-quality planning that places homes in well-located areas.
The scorecard, which was released earlier this week, used four criteria to rank Australia’s eight states and territories: bringing more shovel-ready land to market, higher density housing, cutting red tape, and faster decisions.
Infrastructure provision was noted as a supplementary condition, but was not listed as a core criterion for the planning blueprint.
Collins argued that the scorecard overlooked the critical importance of good-quality planning in creating communities that Australians want to live in.
“This scorecard would give an ‘A’ to planning systems that give fast approvals for developments with housing in a floodplain, and an ‘F’ to systems that ensure new developments are well-designed with parks, transport and street trees,” he said.
“We absolutely need more housing, but we also need to ensure this housing is in good-quality places with the infrastructure and services our communities depend on.”
He stressed that quality planning was a key requirement of the federal government’s housing accord, which states that Australia’s 1.2 million new homes must be in well-located areas.
“Planning is essential to delivering the right housing in the right place – and good planning makes sure that housing works alongside all the other things communities need like jobs, transport and spaces for recreation,” said Collins.
“We need to see better quality outcomes, not just fast ones.”
The CEO also condemned the HIA report for making “spurious claims unsupported by evidence”, such as claiming that “it is common for standalone house approvals to take more than six months”.
According to the PIA, nine in 10 development applications in Western Australia were determined within the statutory time frame of 60 days in 2022–23, with a 98 per cent approval rate.
Meanwhile in Victoria, 81 per cent of VicSmart development applications were determined within just 10 days.
“We need high-performing planning systems and there are opportunities for positive reform across Australia, but let’s have a real conversation about how to use planning to enable the housing we need alongside the great communities people expect and deserve,” Collins concluded.
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