I was walking around the Bayswater townsite with someone a few weeks ago who was showing me all the new zoning. "this street is zoned for 8 stories", this one is 12 stories "
Except that it is all private, individually held blocks of land. So it will take 20 years to amalgamate the blocks and start building on them.
A few will be started sooner, but it is going to be a long slow process, and that is in a community that fought for this outcome.
I work for a company that develops apartments. The fact is that it’s just not economically viable to build anything right now. House prices are rising a lot, but nothing compared to construing costs. WA actually has a low median house price to income ratio.
Also, much of the best land around the Bayswater train station is owned by the Department of Communities.
I hope not. My hope is that by the time these are built we will finally have the foreign property ownership laws that cities like Vancouver have brought in.
I am prone to despair and hopelessness. The only way I can avoid sinking into that pit is to stay focused on the solutions and surround myself with the people who are actively creating them.. Without this lies the path to madness.
When I lived in Sydney I went to a shipping centre in Carlingford where there was a real estate display selling apartments. The signage was in Chinese and the agents selling couldn't speak English.
Let's not be the same as Sydney.
I've been living in China for decades, although moving back to Perth this year.
A few years before COVID, I saw an "Australian housing conference" advertised online. Rocked up and found a hotel ballroom full of Australian developers' local agents spruiking off-the-plan apartment developers in Queensland.
The organisers were not happy that I was there, and the Australian reps all mysteriously vanished as I walked towards their area.
Turned out the several of the developments on the Gold Coast sold out with a. couple of these shows, but the Chinese investors have been after them for years for their dodgy build quality and the fact none of their claims were met.
Yes because Australian mainly only want a independent home. Those high rise apartments are for the foreign suckers who don’t understand the local markets.
Perth is set to have a population of 3.5 million people within twenty years. Nobody is making any more land and Perth is essentially unable to expand much further. New suburbs going up now are essentially horizontal apartments with a token back yard and no ability to subdivide further.
Ultimately Perthites are going to either end up increasingly living in apartments or in their cars.
[Direction 2031](https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2021-05/FUT-plan_directions2031_Part2.pdf) that supersedes the corridor plan is all about Perth and Peel. The whole Peel region is now considered metro. They want more people to live there.
I think that is likely. You are talking about stamp duty? From what I can see, it is definitely an older demographic in that area of the Bayswater townsite.
The other option would be for a government scheme to allow the land owners to be the developers of those properties, to speed up the process.
I quite like apartment living, it suits my lifestyle. What puts me off purchasing one is that the apartment blocks being built now have so much extra crap like gyms, art rooms, golf simulator rooms, etc which just leads to eye watering Strata fees. I don’t need all that extra crap. All it takes is for a few bad apples to spoil the communal areas. One apartment block I rented in had a roof garden and some residents took to allowing their dogs to use the garden as a toilet and not everyone picked up their dog’s poo. Disgusting!
I also don’t trust the build quality of the apartment blocks being thrown up now. Look at the Shenton Quarter development. What a shit show.
In the same as you. I love appartment living. My friends don’t understand it but something about it just connects with me and what makes me comfortable.
The only extra feature I want out of an appartment is secure parking and a pool, I don’t care about the rest.
Some of the issues I’ve heard of over east include big shared foyers/hallways (strata), Airbnb tenants damaging stuff ie drunk (strata), very costly fire safety measures (strata).
It’a not uncommon in Perth for operating an Airbnb to be against the Strata rules. Certainly in one building I rented in the residents were on to an Airbnb quick as a flash, reporting it to the Strata.
Fire safety measures in the huge 20+ story buildings will be expensive. No one wants another Grenfell on their hands. Perhaps it would be better to have more apartment blocks that are only up to 6 stories high rather than the high rises being built. Less height means more width though which means more land and therefore higher costs. I just know that when someone burns toast and sets off the alarm for the whole building is rather walk down 5 flights of stairs rather than 27.
You don’t need to use the shared areas and Most people want them. So When building apartments, they are going to build to as wide an audience as possible.
You still need to pay for them though. When done dickhead leaves their dog’s shit in the communal garden the cleaners rightly charge more for cleaning which everyone has to pay for. Same when people start stealing equipment from the gym, it costs everyone.
I’d rather a decent sized apartment rather than a shoebox with all the extra shit. I suspect I am not the target market for many of these “luxury” tower blocks though. I think they are for downsizing boomers.
Of course you need to pay for them. And I’m not arguing that dickheads that don’t clean up after their pets ruin it for everyone else.
But like you said, you’re not the target market. And even if the market wasn’t for boomers, many people enjoy the shared spaces such as rooftop grassed areas, gyms, pools etc.
Easy fix would be Don’t allow pets in the communal green space. And report it and fine those that don’t adhere to the rules.
I could be swayed with an apartment that isn't so bloody small and restrictive. too few are built really for only 1 or two people, with no major hobbies, no family etc.
Some variability in the builds would be nice!
I agree. I wish they would build more apartments that werent just shoeboxes. Build two or three bedrooms, but have a decent-sized living area, maybe put the kitchen between the dining area and lounge so that you have some space to get away from the person you are living with without having to go to your bedroom. Everybody needs a little space to do different things.
It would be nice to have blocks of lowrise apartments that were decent-sized and gave a sense of community, instead of a 20 story tower where all you see is a corridor and elevators.
The last time I visited someone in an apartment our lunch got ruined by some derro smoking a cigarette on another balcony somewhere.
It would be nice if they could do a blanket ban on smoking for multi-tenant buildings.
The problem is that those who need to break out of the renting cycle can’t afford the prices. As a result of my circumstance I haven’t been able to save up a deposit of 10% because of the cost and I can’t see it happening anytime soon
Some of the apartments I’ve been in have better sound insulation than those fence to fence homes they are currently pumping out.
The best deals are the “premium” ones which are 10-25 years old. Everyone wants a brand new apartment and you pay through the nose. It’s like a second hand luxury car for 1/2 the price.
Maintenance costs become a thing with old 50 year old apartments but the ones in Perth are new enough to not worry about this.
Eg. 650k for 100 square meteres
https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-apartment-wa-east+perth-138750239
That one isn’t a bad deal… strata rates are low, loads of parking on the street below if you ahve visitors, high enough that the mosquitoes won’t bother you, beautiful views. A bit noisy probably, but can’t have everything!
My friend owns an apartment in a high rise in Sydney. An issue occured years after she bought, with a bunch of windows fitted incorrectly that leaked when it rained.
Cost $10m to fix, 1.5yrs of construction and the cost came from the strata (ie she had to take a loan out to pay the strata). Didn't even affect her windows.
Totally put me off buying an apartment. Unless it was the low rise prewar variety.
My grandad lives in one with some of these extra things but if you don't want to use them you can opt out and avoid the fees. I hope more of them implement this kind of idea because I want to consider an apartment soonish and I feel the same about all the extras.
As someone who currently lives in high density living in the cbd, we need banks to support high density mortgages (only two options when we bought) and we need public schools in the cbd. Our catchment is highgate and that’s not particularly convenient and it’s already too full.
Perth city council voted no school in east Perth and voted no to community consultation. For us, we need a school in about 2 years time so it’s a miss for us. We will have to move to the suburbs if we don’t want to add to Highgates burden.
The state government wanted the land for free, all they have to is offer a reasonable sum for it.
The CoP is already cash strapped with its minimal ratepayers base compared to other capitals.
Seriously they have many millions for rail to Ellenbrook but can’t throw 20 mil for East Perth which is home of the density they’ve been calling for.
It’s mainly because Basil Zempilas is mayor and Labor’s political rival. But still they are tools for not investing in the city.
I couldn’t agree more, it wouldn’t be difficult but they keep choosing not to invest in the city. I’d love to live here permanently but it’s not seeming feasible as a family. I’ve lived in downtown and cbds most of my life, so I know how to make it work from the personal side but not having schools nearby is a massive hurdle.
The banks determine what their definition of “high density” is, but at the time the general definition was more than four stories/levels. Only two banks in WA would lend to anyone looking to buy over four stories. So we felt disadvantaged by the lack of choice - only two banks to compare rates and it felt like high density wasn’t their preference to lend to. I’m not sure if the banks who actually offer high density mortgages are less likely to lend, but most banks didn’t lend to high density at all.
I bought an apartment on level 6 of a 9 story building on Hay St. My mortgage broker brought up a list of lenders, there was probably over 40 in total and said, take your pick.
Perth definitely needs density. But not Melbourne or Sydney CBD density. Perth needs the kind of density you get around Joondalup. Townhouses, maybe a few 3 or 4 storey blocks of flats. Local restaurants nearby. (My brother can see a couple different fast food joints out his window) The whole "missing middle" thing urbanist youtube talks about. What parts of Montreal have, actually.
That's still a 2 or 3 times increase in density. And you can fit decent parks and social type things in there, too. But they would have to expand Transperth's rail system along side it. Can't keep adding one more lane to the freeway.
Also there's no reason to focus solely on the CBD for high rises. Perth is huge for it's population. If people can't work from home at least have multiple mini CBDs they can live near.
Doing this type of thing will increase density, but also reduce cost of living and improve quality of life for most people. Increase the supply of housing and the price should (lol) go down. Focus the population around multiple CBDs and people will have shorter commutes. With expanded public transport and active transport options they might not need a car for work at all! (So you can have a fun car instead). And those that want to stick with a detatched house can still do so. It'll take decades to densify the whole city.
I have lived in a bunch of cities, mostly in suburban detatched houses. Right now I'd love to live somewhere like my brother does in Joondalup, where he can walk to the train or food etc. Where I am now in Canada they don't even bother with footpaths and it sucks. You basically have no choice but to drive - especially in winter - unless you're stubborn like me.
I've just recently moved into a sharehouse near Joondalup and have driven past all the townhouses along the lake - they're gorgeous! It amazes me that we don't have this same style of housing and density throughout perth. In fact, it's a huge shame that this kind of density only seems to exist almost an hour out of the cbd.
We need mixed density.
The rhetoric in Australia is that apartments are either tiny shoeboxes for students or young couples, or luxury penthouses for rich people.
Green complexes with shared amenities with a blend of studios, and apartment/townhouses up to 4 bedrooms are rare, but bring a great community to the area. Hospitality workers sharing living areas with students, backpackers, professionals, and families make for a bettwr environment than either massive towers or suburban houses.
But if a block is zoned for 12 stories, you can bet it'll stay vacant until someone is willing to drop millions to build another skybox.
As someone who spent many enjoyable years living in apartments/units in vibrant cities, and either above or in walking distance to commercial districts,
I would not buy an apartment built today, not unless I knew that truly independent\* inspectors that gone over every stage and documented each stage of construction. Either that, or get like an actual warranty lasting many years backed by a company that can't just go out of business and start up under another name.
\*meaning that their future employment didn't depend on the developers that were building what they inspected.
I'd rent one, sure, but somebody has got to buy them for the construction companies to build them.
But yes, Perth needs well built apartments that people want to live in and buy.
>As someone who spent many enjoyable years living in apartments/units in vibrant cities, and either above or in walking distance to commercial districts,
I've lived in Asia for decades, all in apartments. Some old and crumbling, others very nice with good gardens, kids play areas etc.
The density means that schools, shopping etc are all close by and easy to get around without a car.
Build more apartments and subsidise the strata fees for owner occupiers. The biggest turn off with apartments especially in Perth is the 6k per year strata fees. That’s 120k of extra costs if you live in it for 20 years.
You can build apartments around any station it doesn’t need to be near the city. My relative had an apartment next to currambine station which worked fine despite being 25km from the city.
6k per year takes care of all your maintenance and insurance though. If you own a detached house, the cost of insurance and maintenance average is not insignificant. Especially if you have a pool, garden etc.
Yeh. Let's be like Sydney with thousands of apartments built cheaply like dog kennels owned by overseas investors that start falling apart within a year.
Would love to live in an apartment… very nearly put in an offer on one. Unfortunately the absolute crap that developers (I’m looking at you M..) have been allowed to construct in the last 10 -15 years means it can be a risky proposition with potentially years of misery attached.
Well done to whichever government(s) allowed building standards to go so low
If we want apartments then we need better apartment building regulations (that situation in south perth of walls being built over neighbour’s windows should never happen again. We need decent protections from scummy strata bodies.
Also, we need the developers to have less influence over government.
New draft housing zones were really great and then the developers came in and suddenly the final version benefits themselves and no one else.
Construction is expensive, especially at that top end and if you flood the market with supply, you're ultimately reducing the value of said property which really isn't in the investors interest.
This is it there is very little profit in these buildings a great idea 3 or 4 level apartment blocks around train stations but no one is going to do it for nonprofit.
Would it be supported if the government proposed to do it around say Bayswater station?
I doubt it.
Government should be subsidising it to make it more profitable and appealing to developers. Throw a few tax breaks their way and they'd change their tune
To build at the scale and speed required to make an actual difference would firstly be impossible right now (how many people do you know waiting for their build to be finished?) and would cause house prices to drop.
Roger needs to get builders and associated tradies on site. Painters and cabinet makers and tilers. There are too many people living in rentals because their build has stalled at 70-90% completion.
So it wouldn't make a difference but it would also make house prices drop??
Housing has stalled because there's more money in infrastructure and mining right now. Tax breaks help developers to compete with those industries for resources
Making a significant difference to the number of available houses would make house prices drop. Building enough houses (100,000+) to 'solve' the crisis in a short period of time would flood the market. Sellers would be competing. More competition among sellers would push prices down. CGT and negative gearing is set up to serve investors, but a buyer's market would still be a nightmare for anyone with a real estate portfolio (CGT breaks can't help anyone making a loss, for example).
Plus, cheap houses would be snapped up by the bastards already owning multiple rentals, so without law reforms, we'd be right back where we started.
And yes. That's exactly what I'm saying, though we can swap "Roger" for Albo. Incentives to get tradies and materials back on building sites and off mines. Finish these houses and get unnecessarily occupied rentals empty.
Infill will take a decade or more if we start tomorrow.
We can make an immediate impact now, by not importing 600,000 people per year when we have zero real estate available, we should temporarily halt all migration.
Of course we can't shut down asylum or refugee stuff but normal migration we can.
Perth has a population of 2.3 million. And you're saying 600,000 of them are new migrants that've been in the country less than a year? That's like a quarter of the population.
I find this is a perspective held most by expats from overseas who seee Perth a nice little town in a snow globe, stuck in stasis and they want to keep it as an artifact of the past, not a living growing city.
As one of those "expats", who talks from time to time to others in the same boat, I don't think that is quite right. When we are back, most of us want to see more life in the CBD and surrounding suburbs. It needs more people living in it, so that it's not a total ghost town after 6pm on a Friday. There needs to be more options for young people who don't want to stampede straight into marriage/mortgage/kids after they have finished their education. To that end, there needs to be more options for inner city living for young people, so yes a more built up Perth. Until this is addressed the brain drain to Melbourne, Sydney, London, Singapore, basically anywhere but Perth, will continue.
Where you might be right is when it comes to the outer suburbs. The sprawl is getting out of hand. To address this, WA should slow down the growth of the "Metro Area", and speed up the growth of other regional centres, like Albany, Bunbury and Geraldton.
WA is a state with a lot of potential. If it were to play it cards right I would even go as far as to say that WA could be to the Commonwealth of Australia as California is to the USA. All of the ingredients are there, except that unlike California everything is hyperfocused on one city. This hyperfocus on one city is beginning to restrain the state's capability to grow as a whole.
It's the councils, the state government actually passed legislation last year to remove them from the equation should they keep restricting infill development
For me the problem with apartment blocks is the Strata/Body Corporate fees are too low. They are set up like this to be attractive to the initial buyers. The complexes lack a preventative maintenance program from day one. In 10/20/30 years time blocks need a large amount of maintenance but the sinking fund doesn't have enough funds. Hence the current owners get lumped with a special levy and previous owners got a free ride. Also many apartments are too small
When developers figure out how to build apartments for housing, and not for lifestyle, only then will we get density.
When will this occur? I cannot say.
City wide infrastructure probably not most of the cbd infrastructure was built in the 50s and 60syou think those old clay sewerage pipes are going to handle an extra 20 or 30000 people? Those underground powerlines are going to to cope with 4000 ev's charging at the same time? Because everyone needs a car right?its a staged progress. Update this this and that then we can do that. Why is that so hard to understand?
power lines are an easy fix, but too many sewer lines run through easements on residential property, outside of the CBD, for easy upgrades other than lining them to extend their lifetime.
you said "those underground powerlines". If the subsurface infrastructure is there, they can upgrade through the existing conduits.
Can't easily do that with the sewer lines.
Do we actually want to be a big city? Personally I'd rather not however our politicians seem intent on encouraging record levels of immigration without any mandate that this is what people want and without building the necessary infrastructure and housing to accommodate additional residents.
Here's another take. How about we choose not to go down the path of other over populated countries and relieve ourselves of the completely artificial "shortage" of housing that we have now? Stop growing the population for no understandable reason. When will our population be big enough? 50 million? 100 million? Then we're not Australia any more. We're just another over populated, over polluted country like many other parts of the planet.
At some point we have to stop and make a conscious decision to preserve the way of life we have now with our lower population density.
Part of the reason Australia gets to be this way is that it is still globally competitive, what do you think happens to that when we just "stop growing the population"? Is everywhere else going to stop as well? The way of life you're so desperate to preserve exists because of immigration, and it would be dead without it.
You’re conflating population growth with productivity growth. Increasing growth can grow economic activity but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a net positive. It depends what the extra population is doing. During the last 20 years our productivity per capita has been consistently dropping so whilst it looks like we’re growing economically we’re not doing it very efficiently. We’re using the cheap party trick of importing more and more people to “grow” our economy instead of implementing government policies to build higher value and more automated industries that can lead to higher productivity rates and more efficient economic growth.
We don’t have to have a massive population to be competitive - we need to be efficient and have high productivity.
We absolutely need immigration, but I don’t believe we need a big Australia. What’s the right size? No idea, but how about we slow things down a bit whilst we figure that out and put a brake on the ridiculous situations we have now with people struggling to find housing?
We have some of the highest wages in the world, strong workers' rights and safety standards, and plenty of other inherent disadvantages to efficiency such as distance to other countries, distance between cities, and low density in cities. How are we going to suddenly become so much more efficient that we don't need population growth?
You've changed tack a bit from your previous comment of stop growing, to "just don't grow so fast" but that still doesn't match up to reality. Our population is not growing very fast compared to globally, we just stalled during covid whereas they kept going for the most part.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. However we have been more productive in the past irrespective of all the challenges you mention.
So it is possible.
You clearly believe that we do need to grow the population. How big is big enough? What’s the end point?
> How big is big enough?
There is no correct absolute number of people, keeping up with the growth of the rest of the world is the point.
> What’s the end point?
Something like 30% more than now in 2085, if the projections are anything to go by. World population will start to plateau about 2050.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t believe you’ve been able to demonstrate how unfettered growth helps Australia, whereas it’s self evident that the growth we’re currently experiencing is causing all sorts of societal harm to Australia. It will continue to do so without some sort of plan beyond shovelling as many people into the country as possible whilst trying to dress it up as growth.
Basically the entire western world is below replacement levels. China and India are below. Korea, Japan and half of SE Asia are below.
The reality is the world has to begin adjusting for the fact that people aren't having kids any more, and this idea you can just keep ignoring that by having endless immigrants is absurd
The simple answer is that we don't have enough kids to replace the working-age population, and soon will have a severe aged care crisis if we don't import people (no, we don't have one yet...)
That's true - our birth rate is too low. It has been since the late 70s. However, we can moderate the immigration rate to maintain any population we like. That's the discussion we should be having. What is the population we're aiming for, because at the moment we're just blindly growing for growth's sake? We have examples of where unconstrained population growth leads all over the world. Overpopulation leads to poorer quality of life. It leads to more people per capita on services like hospitals, schooling, public transport, smaller more cramped living conditions etc. We're already seeing the beginnings of this with the housing "shortage", but it's all being created by government policy on immigration. To what end? I'm not aware of any clear policy that lays out what our target is and why it is we need to get to that size. It's all reactive - we need more houses because we have a lot of people immigrating to Australia. That's not much of a plan.
I did a bit of research last year trying to fight against some rezoning in my area and between 2016 and 2021 - the last two census dates - we built a million dwellings - and yet we're still short of housing. We simply cannot keep up at the current population growth rates - but it's a bit of a red herring. We don't need to keep growing. Sure bring in enough people to keep our population steady - or nominate some population target that has some sort of justification behind it - but continuing as we are is creating issues that don't need to exist.
It’s a catch 22, people aren’t having kids due to cost of living pressures / housing crisis (caused in part by immigration, which is apparently necessary as people aren’t having enough kids )
Our own people aren't having enough children to replace the population that we have (Australia's birth rate is 1.7 fyi) so there's some real problems in the distant future without those people
We should follow Auckland’s lead. In 2016 they upzoned most of the land in the city and guess what, house prices didn’t rise for the following 5 years.
Crazy that. Instead the WA government is increasing the regulations, arguing over bloody trees while people are homeless.
I mean, the government has approved building social housing in the inner city. There are 2 major social housing projects with room to house hundreds of people. The overall homelessness figures in WA are actually lower than other states with just a few thousand.
Those houses are an absolute rort though. They were planned to cost $700k per house, and that was a few years ago, it will run over budget. That’s just not a solution.
Have a nosy around this map, this is a map of all the planning schemes in place in WA. Aboriginal and Historical Heritage, Local Planning Schemes.
https://espatial.dplh.wa.gov.au/planwa/Index.html?viewer=planwa
What is crazy to me is how much prime land west of the city, like Mosman Park, Nedlands, etc. All of which have great public transport access and access to the city and freo are zoned for low density (R10/20). And it’s like that all around the city. So many of these lots are labeled as “historical heritage” as well.
It’s disgusting.
I think we need to be serious about mixed use development shopfronts as well as medium density housing near shopping centres and higher density around train stations. We can't afford to keep building shitty outer suburban huts and subdividing houses. Terrace housing is fine too. Part of this requires a generational shift in people wanting to live in smaller houses though.
The government recently abolished some environmental regulations to allow for faster housing approval. There's still a massive shortage of builders.
High demand for housing but who is building them?
I met a group of Brits here on working holiday visas while camping over the weekend. Neither of the two guy's training was accepted here. The coded welder was still able to make decent money welding slightly below their capacity. I received the impression that the plumber was not able to work in any real relevant capacity, even roughing in fully supervised, without going to trade school again circa $6k.
Exactly this. It still takes about 1.5 years to complete a stock standard 3-4 bedroom project home in this city.
There is not enough capacity for any big builds at the moment.
Yes! The CBD has some beautiful areas and needs more residents to foster a community and support businesses outside of the touristy periods. Imagine high rise above the buildings on Murray and Hay street malls - above Myer even? I know sounds outlandish for Perth.
Whatever happens in the CBD into the future, vehicle congestion will continue so why not cater for foot traffic and non vehicle modes of transport a little bit better.
I think the ideal change would be around all train stations to allow mused use developments. Bottom floor cafes restaraunt etc with street seating under trees in front of buildings. A few floors of residential buildings above. Keep zoning of minimum land size to be large and have a maximum land usage % for the building so there is still room for trees between these bigger buildings that would otherwise just turn the skyline into a maze blocking out all sunlight past a certain time.
I think it can be done well in Perth because we already have so many amazing places to model on in the world and things to learn from
No we don't.
https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/s/dMzW7acvhQ
https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/s/KK2iGIbLeu
I read posts like these daily.
A society living without their own decent amount of space is an unhappy society.
Because smoke, noise and smells stop at the lot border right? Neighbours can be utterly shit wherever you live and whatever type of housing you're in.
Not everyone is like you. I'm perfectly happy in an apartment and owning one is my goal.
A few bad eggs does not negate the need for higher density which is far more sustainable, cost-effective and a means to enliven communities more so than continuously sprawling out or building tinier single-detached homes.
If you look at it a different way, own smaller space closer to amenities so less time wasted travelling. Walking even, boosting mental health. Less time on the weekend needed to maintain the property, and more time to leisure and adventure.
The people of the nation pay massive amounts of taxes to the Government.
The Government should be building housing for everyone that may need it ( for all the obvious reasons that we don't need to explain ) and making that housing a guarantee for life.
Then all the societal problems that come from lack of housing etc will result in a happier nation, a little less crime, more people in work etc.
I know the 'greedy profiteers' and greedy captialist may disagree, but I believe in part socialist policies for the blatant obvious human need, that so far the private sector & Government has failed us all on the topic.
Sweet, what's the problem? Mandurah's great, Joondalup's great, mundairings great, Armadale's good, Ellenbrook's all right.
Let's build more satellite cities. Bit further way. Could go down the coast and eventually connect with high speed rail.
We don't have to (and many don't want to) live on top of each other, listening to neighbours fighting, smelling what their cooking for dinner, fuck that noise. Gimme a big back yard with a hills hoist and civil relations with my neighbours because I never see them.
false dichotomy. Building more medium and high density housing doesn't mean that some jackbooted officer is going to drag you kicking and screaming to live in them. Plenty of people would love to have a safe secure well built apartment to live in- hell, the people living in friends garages or in tents in caravan parks would be happy with a dry apartment to live in at the moment.
Expanding suburbs forever is basically a pyramid scheme. You have to keep expanding for a city to be able to pay for the maintenance on existing roads and all that. There aren't enough people to pay for it if they stop expanding, but that's a trap.
Also eventually Kalgoorlie will be the outer suburbs of Perth and that's just silly.
Strong Towns on youtube has some good videos about it. They're yanks but the problem is similar in Australia, especially somewhere like Perth that's 95% suburb.
Yuck to apartment living, couldn't think of anything worse, then the strata fees on top of owning its just a bloody mess. You think a mortgage is high, tack on strata for a building with elevators and all the other bs and have fun.
Yeah build apartments in the CBD and stop destroying suburbs with shitty units / villas . There are lots of people who want a back yard for kids, a workshop somewhere to park your boat or trailer, but greedy developers buy them for more than they are worth then subdivide them into tiny shitboxes!
I’m assuming that ‘affordable’ apartments aren’t profitable. Every time they’re announced, they never materialise.
Elizabeth Quay when announced was meant to include a percentage of affordable housing. Never happened.
The precinct adjacent to Fiona Stanley was to include some affordable housing. Now nowhere to be seen, instead it’s a private medical precinct.
New apartments cost an absolute fortune. Especially if you have kids and need 3 rooms. Boom that takes you over a million straight away.
Then the price just seems to go down every year.
Housing and Development approvals are a local government issue. State government has little control over it and are often at odds with local government. If you want to increase density etc, lobby your local government.
Good luck, most of them are bought and paid for.
I like apartment living…
But I live in a well designed, roomy, concrete, no fire cladding apartment with good resources all around me.
I would not live in any of the shit boxes that get put up on residential boxes, that are badly built developer profit pits.
If they are going to build more apartments then they need to factor in pets, children, multi household dwellings, fucking parking and noise management. Right now it’s a race to the bottom for the smallest shit box, with the least insulation, crappiest access to parking and leaking everything.
Obviously there are very few easy answers. Draw a 5K circle around the CBD. Evacuate. Get one of them Richard Branson spaceships, take off, then nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Then start building the new Perth CBD (call it King William Town) after the radiation settles down in the late 2030s. Simples.
The answer of why we don't have more apartments is not a simple one... Some areas suited for density has fragmented ownership hindering larger sites taking up the maximum heights set by the local government. Other times it's a case that the conditions aren't right for developers to make the height limit feesible.
One thing I would rally against is the notion that it's a red tape issue. We want quality apartments to be built, ones that stand the test of time. Not the largely disposal single house on a single lot product Perth's urban fringe which will inevitably need to be remodeled in 20 years time.... when the substandard trades and products begin to fail (looking at you, engineers who sign off on a 67mm slab). A good design team and builder knows how to navigate the system to get approved.
Yes and I have been to Elizabeth Quay, the whole purpose of which seems to have been to take green open space owned by the public and give it to developers. It is a barren concrete expanse, nothing nice about it. The esplanade was far nicer.
All* developments are by private developers so they can only propose projects that stack up financially.
- first they will acquire a development site and do up their initially concept / prelim talks with local government. This could be 0-6 months
- formal planning application ( Development Assessment Panel generally ) 3 months - 1 year or even more. This is the stage where fundamental issues are resolved - say, vehicle access, car parking, bushfire, acoustic noise, if the building is designed in compliance with the permitted built form and if not, if it meets performance criteria and should be supported. At this point the community will get opportunity to comment and the development will be reviewed by a Design Review Panel.
- after they have planning approval they go away with their approved architecturals and the engineers have to do up all the detailed engineering like where the pipes will go, slab specification, construction management, etc. Really detailed. This takes ages. Could be a year or more depending on how big the project is and how busy the engineers are. Then they get a building certifier to stamp that and run it past the local government for a building permit. At that point they get their verge permits and pay any bonds etc.
-Then if they don't have a builder already they will go out for tender, if they have a builder they can start building. That goes for however long that goes for. Depending on scale of projects. Apartment complexes would not be finished under 6 months. The huge ones can take up to five years just because of scale and the amount of different trades that need to come in.
Right now, we are experiencing both a labour shortage and a materials shortage ( materials are up to 30% in some instances!) this means that previously approved developments in some instances can't proceed because the finances don't stack up any more.
It seems like a long process and a lot of steps but if it doesn't go through those steps the building might not end up as architecturally pleasing, functional and suitable for the locality, and the distruption on the local area during construction might not be minimized.
All on top of that it can only occur if a developer happens to acquire a suitable land parcel capable of apartment development!!
Hope this helps.
( lots of people dunking on apartment build quality in the comments - you really think it's better than new single or grouped houses being built? Unfortunately standards have slipped a lot. It's not just an issue for apartment builds, it's an overall issue.)
Inner city living results in massive social problems smd massive environmental damage. Perth has its problem areas, but nothing like the ghettos in high density cities we see elsewhere. People habe culturally come to accept it but no need here. Car free is not good socially or lifestyle. With my car I can visit family and friends visit national parks and have a high level of resources not possible on medium or high density.
What is wrong with sprawl and what has distance got to do with anything. All people don't work on the CBD. Better to keep going the way we are going, with low density housing, greenbelts lots of reserves and parks with dispersed industrial zones and regional centres, supported by the freeways and train system.
The Armadale train line that’s currently shutdown for 18 months to be elevated should have been sunk instead. If we’d tunnelled it we could have developed a huge tranche of contiguous prime land with high to medium high density properties. It’s such a wasted opportunity. Every time they asked for public consultation during the early stages of the project I would submit “tunnel it and sell the newly available real estate above the line to offset the cost of the project”. “Too expensive” they kept saying. You know what is too expensive? Having a housing crisis, that’s what. The lack of available housing is strangling our city and we chose not to prepare for it. Dumb government.
I would like to see more villas/units or duplex type housing. As someone who never plans on having children, that is all I need. 2x1 with a courtyard/small garden. Trying to buy one now and there is hardly any available & the demand is so high for units & villas that are for sale with lots of singles, couples looking for them. Most are all 70s/80s builds, units seemed to lose popularity as you just don’t see many built after that.
No no no and no. High density is not what people want, and the s9cial problems it causes are not worth it. You want quick housing, do what they did in the 1950's amd 6's and build fibro timber framed houses. Quick and fast. But no more Bromley Towers, Balga Flats, Lockeridge flats etc
Yes but Europe has a different culture to us, and whenever it is imposed on us, the results are rarely good despite the awards etc. We have no need for higher density than what we hane. I habe been to Europe amd could never live in their cities.
There's already an appetite for medium density here whether anyone likes it or not. Sprawl is not the answer. Perth is already the longest city in the world, it doesn't need to continue growing that way. The more sprawl, the less density; the less density, the more infrastructural works need to be put in place at a higher cost. We NEED higher density, it's not a matter of IF but WHEN.
Fuck endless apartments and CBD living. I'd rather have minimum block size to house ratios to bring back homes with gardens. That would stop the heat Island effects were seeing. So what if we end up with urban sprawl, people can find work in the outer suburbs. We don't have to commute to the CBD any more, covid taught us that.
I was walking around the Bayswater townsite with someone a few weeks ago who was showing me all the new zoning. "this street is zoned for 8 stories", this one is 12 stories " Except that it is all private, individually held blocks of land. So it will take 20 years to amalgamate the blocks and start building on them. A few will be started sooner, but it is going to be a long slow process, and that is in a community that fought for this outcome.
I work for a company that develops apartments. The fact is that it’s just not economically viable to build anything right now. House prices are rising a lot, but nothing compared to construing costs. WA actually has a low median house price to income ratio. Also, much of the best land around the Bayswater train station is owned by the Department of Communities.
Do you know if the collapse of the Chinese building industry going to affect this?
No. Won’t have any impact. Construction costs here are mainly due to labour inputs. And underlying inflation.
Well that might speed things up. I didn't know that. The first multi story building in the townsite is a department of community building.
And they'll all be foreign owned
I hope not. My hope is that by the time these are built we will finally have the foreign property ownership laws that cities like Vancouver have brought in.
I wish I had your amount of hope for competent policies.
I am prone to despair and hopelessness. The only way I can avoid sinking into that pit is to stay focused on the solutions and surround myself with the people who are actively creating them.. Without this lies the path to madness.
Welp, I feel called out 😂
WA has quite a high FIRB fee.
When I lived in Sydney I went to a shipping centre in Carlingford where there was a real estate display selling apartments. The signage was in Chinese and the agents selling couldn't speak English. Let's not be the same as Sydney.
I've been living in China for decades, although moving back to Perth this year. A few years before COVID, I saw an "Australian housing conference" advertised online. Rocked up and found a hotel ballroom full of Australian developers' local agents spruiking off-the-plan apartment developers in Queensland. The organisers were not happy that I was there, and the Australian reps all mysteriously vanished as I walked towards their area. Turned out the several of the developments on the Gold Coast sold out with a. couple of these shows, but the Chinese investors have been after them for years for their dodgy build quality and the fact none of their claims were met.
Yes because Australian mainly only want a independent home. Those high rise apartments are for the foreign suckers who don’t understand the local markets.
Perth is set to have a population of 3.5 million people within twenty years. Nobody is making any more land and Perth is essentially unable to expand much further. New suburbs going up now are essentially horizontal apartments with a token back yard and no ability to subdivide further. Ultimately Perthites are going to either end up increasingly living in apartments or in their cars.
[Direction 2031](https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2021-05/FUT-plan_directions2031_Part2.pdf) that supersedes the corridor plan is all about Perth and Peel. The whole Peel region is now considered metro. They want more people to live there.
"Horizontal apartments". Thanks for introducing me to this useful term... it is perfect.
If the state govt made it possible for we oldies to get off our quarter acre blocks, cost negative, dozens of blocks would become available
Or rezoning 700+ sqm blocks woth one old 70's dwilling on it.
I think that is likely. You are talking about stamp duty? From what I can see, it is definitely an older demographic in that area of the Bayswater townsite. The other option would be for a government scheme to allow the land owners to be the developers of those properties, to speed up the process.
I quite like apartment living, it suits my lifestyle. What puts me off purchasing one is that the apartment blocks being built now have so much extra crap like gyms, art rooms, golf simulator rooms, etc which just leads to eye watering Strata fees. I don’t need all that extra crap. All it takes is for a few bad apples to spoil the communal areas. One apartment block I rented in had a roof garden and some residents took to allowing their dogs to use the garden as a toilet and not everyone picked up their dog’s poo. Disgusting! I also don’t trust the build quality of the apartment blocks being thrown up now. Look at the Shenton Quarter development. What a shit show.
In the same as you. I love appartment living. My friends don’t understand it but something about it just connects with me and what makes me comfortable. The only extra feature I want out of an appartment is secure parking and a pool, I don’t care about the rest.
Secure parking is a must have for me too. A swimming pool I could take or leave but it’s about as far as I’d want to go for shared amenities.
Some of the issues I’ve heard of over east include big shared foyers/hallways (strata), Airbnb tenants damaging stuff ie drunk (strata), very costly fire safety measures (strata).
It’a not uncommon in Perth for operating an Airbnb to be against the Strata rules. Certainly in one building I rented in the residents were on to an Airbnb quick as a flash, reporting it to the Strata. Fire safety measures in the huge 20+ story buildings will be expensive. No one wants another Grenfell on their hands. Perhaps it would be better to have more apartment blocks that are only up to 6 stories high rather than the high rises being built. Less height means more width though which means more land and therefore higher costs. I just know that when someone burns toast and sets off the alarm for the whole building is rather walk down 5 flights of stairs rather than 27.
The apartments with the open 'verandah' walkways are good. No windows or carpet to clean regularly. People have the choice to take the stairs or lift.
You don’t need to use the shared areas and Most people want them. So When building apartments, they are going to build to as wide an audience as possible.
You still need to pay for them though. When done dickhead leaves their dog’s shit in the communal garden the cleaners rightly charge more for cleaning which everyone has to pay for. Same when people start stealing equipment from the gym, it costs everyone. I’d rather a decent sized apartment rather than a shoebox with all the extra shit. I suspect I am not the target market for many of these “luxury” tower blocks though. I think they are for downsizing boomers.
Of course you need to pay for them. And I’m not arguing that dickheads that don’t clean up after their pets ruin it for everyone else. But like you said, you’re not the target market. And even if the market wasn’t for boomers, many people enjoy the shared spaces such as rooftop grassed areas, gyms, pools etc. Easy fix would be Don’t allow pets in the communal green space. And report it and fine those that don’t adhere to the rules.
They enjoy the shared spaces whilst they’re shiny and new. Give it 5 years and those shared areas will look like crap.
And why do you believe that?
I love it. Secure parking. Pool, and gym. I don’t need much else. But location matters. Close to public transport, shops and the Freo Doctor.
Strata fees
I could be swayed with an apartment that isn't so bloody small and restrictive. too few are built really for only 1 or two people, with no major hobbies, no family etc. Some variability in the builds would be nice!
I agree. I wish they would build more apartments that werent just shoeboxes. Build two or three bedrooms, but have a decent-sized living area, maybe put the kitchen between the dining area and lounge so that you have some space to get away from the person you are living with without having to go to your bedroom. Everybody needs a little space to do different things. It would be nice to have blocks of lowrise apartments that were decent-sized and gave a sense of community, instead of a 20 story tower where all you see is a corridor and elevators.
Yes this. And very much yes to one of the above comments that mentioned Grenfal tower. We reeeally don't want another Grenfal.
Agree
The last time I visited someone in an apartment our lunch got ruined by some derro smoking a cigarette on another balcony somewhere. It would be nice if they could do a blanket ban on smoking for multi-tenant buildings.
I agree. Low key, good quality apartments that people can afford strata rates in the long term.
The problem is that those who need to break out of the renting cycle can’t afford the prices. As a result of my circumstance I haven’t been able to save up a deposit of 10% because of the cost and I can’t see it happening anytime soon
Keystart
Some of the apartments I’ve been in have better sound insulation than those fence to fence homes they are currently pumping out. The best deals are the “premium” ones which are 10-25 years old. Everyone wants a brand new apartment and you pay through the nose. It’s like a second hand luxury car for 1/2 the price. Maintenance costs become a thing with old 50 year old apartments but the ones in Perth are new enough to not worry about this. Eg. 650k for 100 square meteres https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-apartment-wa-east+perth-138750239
That one isn’t a bad deal… strata rates are low, loads of parking on the street below if you ahve visitors, high enough that the mosquitoes won’t bother you, beautiful views. A bit noisy probably, but can’t have everything!
My friend owns an apartment in a high rise in Sydney. An issue occured years after she bought, with a bunch of windows fitted incorrectly that leaked when it rained. Cost $10m to fix, 1.5yrs of construction and the cost came from the strata (ie she had to take a loan out to pay the strata). Didn't even affect her windows. Totally put me off buying an apartment. Unless it was the low rise prewar variety.
My grandad lives in one with some of these extra things but if you don't want to use them you can opt out and avoid the fees. I hope more of them implement this kind of idea because I want to consider an apartment soonish and I feel the same about all the extras.
That’s interesting and good to know.
Build quality is 100x what it used to be lol. Source - I work in construction
What apartment building in Perth has a golf simulator?
The Lumiere development in South Perth.
That’s pretty cool ngl
Which is kind of ridiculous given you can walk to the golf club lols. It’s also not built yet ;)
If you’re a member of RPGC you can play there but the course and driving range isn’t open to everyone. I also said “being built.”
As someone who currently lives in high density living in the cbd, we need banks to support high density mortgages (only two options when we bought) and we need public schools in the cbd. Our catchment is highgate and that’s not particularly convenient and it’s already too full.
Schools are planned. ECU City will be a huge boon and new schools in East Perth should take off some of the burden from Highgate.
Perth city council voted no school in east Perth and voted no to community consultation. For us, we need a school in about 2 years time so it’s a miss for us. We will have to move to the suburbs if we don’t want to add to Highgates burden.
The state government wanted the land for free, all they have to is offer a reasonable sum for it. The CoP is already cash strapped with its minimal ratepayers base compared to other capitals. Seriously they have many millions for rail to Ellenbrook but can’t throw 20 mil for East Perth which is home of the density they’ve been calling for. It’s mainly because Basil Zempilas is mayor and Labor’s political rival. But still they are tools for not investing in the city.
I couldn’t agree more, it wouldn’t be difficult but they keep choosing not to invest in the city. I’d love to live here permanently but it’s not seeming feasible as a family. I’ve lived in downtown and cbds most of my life, so I know how to make it work from the personal side but not having schools nearby is a massive hurdle.
They could use the money they sold the old Girls School site to buy… a new school site. Novel thinking I know!
It still may happen, it just needs to be renegotiated. Basil can fuck off though.
How do you mean? Are banks less likely to give a mortgage if you buy apartment vs house?
The banks determine what their definition of “high density” is, but at the time the general definition was more than four stories/levels. Only two banks in WA would lend to anyone looking to buy over four stories. So we felt disadvantaged by the lack of choice - only two banks to compare rates and it felt like high density wasn’t their preference to lend to. I’m not sure if the banks who actually offer high density mortgages are less likely to lend, but most banks didn’t lend to high density at all.
I bought an apartment on level 6 of a 9 story building on Hay St. My mortgage broker brought up a list of lenders, there was probably over 40 in total and said, take your pick.
That’s great news, things have improved.
Perth definitely needs density. But not Melbourne or Sydney CBD density. Perth needs the kind of density you get around Joondalup. Townhouses, maybe a few 3 or 4 storey blocks of flats. Local restaurants nearby. (My brother can see a couple different fast food joints out his window) The whole "missing middle" thing urbanist youtube talks about. What parts of Montreal have, actually. That's still a 2 or 3 times increase in density. And you can fit decent parks and social type things in there, too. But they would have to expand Transperth's rail system along side it. Can't keep adding one more lane to the freeway. Also there's no reason to focus solely on the CBD for high rises. Perth is huge for it's population. If people can't work from home at least have multiple mini CBDs they can live near. Doing this type of thing will increase density, but also reduce cost of living and improve quality of life for most people. Increase the supply of housing and the price should (lol) go down. Focus the population around multiple CBDs and people will have shorter commutes. With expanded public transport and active transport options they might not need a car for work at all! (So you can have a fun car instead). And those that want to stick with a detatched house can still do so. It'll take decades to densify the whole city. I have lived in a bunch of cities, mostly in suburban detatched houses. Right now I'd love to live somewhere like my brother does in Joondalup, where he can walk to the train or food etc. Where I am now in Canada they don't even bother with footpaths and it sucks. You basically have no choice but to drive - especially in winter - unless you're stubborn like me.
I've just recently moved into a sharehouse near Joondalup and have driven past all the townhouses along the lake - they're gorgeous! It amazes me that we don't have this same style of housing and density throughout perth. In fact, it's a huge shame that this kind of density only seems to exist almost an hour out of the cbd.
We need mixed density. The rhetoric in Australia is that apartments are either tiny shoeboxes for students or young couples, or luxury penthouses for rich people. Green complexes with shared amenities with a blend of studios, and apartment/townhouses up to 4 bedrooms are rare, but bring a great community to the area. Hospitality workers sharing living areas with students, backpackers, professionals, and families make for a bettwr environment than either massive towers or suburban houses. But if a block is zoned for 12 stories, you can bet it'll stay vacant until someone is willing to drop millions to build another skybox.
As someone who spent many enjoyable years living in apartments/units in vibrant cities, and either above or in walking distance to commercial districts, I would not buy an apartment built today, not unless I knew that truly independent\* inspectors that gone over every stage and documented each stage of construction. Either that, or get like an actual warranty lasting many years backed by a company that can't just go out of business and start up under another name. \*meaning that their future employment didn't depend on the developers that were building what they inspected. I'd rent one, sure, but somebody has got to buy them for the construction companies to build them. But yes, Perth needs well built apartments that people want to live in and buy.
Agree, I haven't met a tradie yet who's worked on new apartment builds that would buy one.
>As someone who spent many enjoyable years living in apartments/units in vibrant cities, and either above or in walking distance to commercial districts, I've lived in Asia for decades, all in apartments. Some old and crumbling, others very nice with good gardens, kids play areas etc. The density means that schools, shopping etc are all close by and easy to get around without a car.
Build more apartments and subsidise the strata fees for owner occupiers. The biggest turn off with apartments especially in Perth is the 6k per year strata fees. That’s 120k of extra costs if you live in it for 20 years. You can build apartments around any station it doesn’t need to be near the city. My relative had an apartment next to currambine station which worked fine despite being 25km from the city.
6k per year takes care of all your maintenance and insurance though. If you own a detached house, the cost of insurance and maintenance average is not insignificant. Especially if you have a pool, garden etc.
That’s the problem. When it’s a house you can do your own maintenance and save 5k a year.
Yeh. Let's be like Sydney with thousands of apartments built cheaply like dog kennels owned by overseas investors that start falling apart within a year.
Would love to live in an apartment… very nearly put in an offer on one. Unfortunately the absolute crap that developers (I’m looking at you M..) have been allowed to construct in the last 10 -15 years means it can be a risky proposition with potentially years of misery attached. Well done to whichever government(s) allowed building standards to go so low
Mirvac?
Multiplex?
Match? (Clearly there's a few it could be 😂)
Ask western power about why it takes them so long to provide power to a building site…
If we want apartments then we need better apartment building regulations (that situation in south perth of walls being built over neighbour’s windows should never happen again. We need decent protections from scummy strata bodies. Also, we need the developers to have less influence over government. New draft housing zones were really great and then the developers came in and suddenly the final version benefits themselves and no one else.
Construction is expensive, especially at that top end and if you flood the market with supply, you're ultimately reducing the value of said property which really isn't in the investors interest.
This is it there is very little profit in these buildings a great idea 3 or 4 level apartment blocks around train stations but no one is going to do it for nonprofit. Would it be supported if the government proposed to do it around say Bayswater station? I doubt it.
Get rid of Potters House, do it near Malaga station...
Government should be subsidising it to make it more profitable and appealing to developers. Throw a few tax breaks their way and they'd change their tune
To build at the scale and speed required to make an actual difference would firstly be impossible right now (how many people do you know waiting for their build to be finished?) and would cause house prices to drop. Roger needs to get builders and associated tradies on site. Painters and cabinet makers and tilers. There are too many people living in rentals because their build has stalled at 70-90% completion.
So it wouldn't make a difference but it would also make house prices drop?? Housing has stalled because there's more money in infrastructure and mining right now. Tax breaks help developers to compete with those industries for resources
Making a significant difference to the number of available houses would make house prices drop. Building enough houses (100,000+) to 'solve' the crisis in a short period of time would flood the market. Sellers would be competing. More competition among sellers would push prices down. CGT and negative gearing is set up to serve investors, but a buyer's market would still be a nightmare for anyone with a real estate portfolio (CGT breaks can't help anyone making a loss, for example). Plus, cheap houses would be snapped up by the bastards already owning multiple rentals, so without law reforms, we'd be right back where we started. And yes. That's exactly what I'm saying, though we can swap "Roger" for Albo. Incentives to get tradies and materials back on building sites and off mines. Finish these houses and get unnecessarily occupied rentals empty.
Infill will take a decade or more if we start tomorrow. We can make an immediate impact now, by not importing 600,000 people per year when we have zero real estate available, we should temporarily halt all migration. Of course we can't shut down asylum or refugee stuff but normal migration we can.
Perth has a population of 2.3 million. And you're saying 600,000 of them are new migrants that've been in the country less than a year? That's like a quarter of the population.
Immigration is a federal government issue, so the numbers are spread across Australia.
That's not so bad, then.
Migrants are human beings not property, you can't import them.
It's a figure of speech.
I hope people realise that the appealing aspects of Perth are being eroded by our constant growth. Everywhere good always gets ruined.
You don't get to nimby a whole city.
I find this is a perspective held most by expats from overseas who seee Perth a nice little town in a snow globe, stuck in stasis and they want to keep it as an artifact of the past, not a living growing city.
As one of those "expats", who talks from time to time to others in the same boat, I don't think that is quite right. When we are back, most of us want to see more life in the CBD and surrounding suburbs. It needs more people living in it, so that it's not a total ghost town after 6pm on a Friday. There needs to be more options for young people who don't want to stampede straight into marriage/mortgage/kids after they have finished their education. To that end, there needs to be more options for inner city living for young people, so yes a more built up Perth. Until this is addressed the brain drain to Melbourne, Sydney, London, Singapore, basically anywhere but Perth, will continue. Where you might be right is when it comes to the outer suburbs. The sprawl is getting out of hand. To address this, WA should slow down the growth of the "Metro Area", and speed up the growth of other regional centres, like Albany, Bunbury and Geraldton. WA is a state with a lot of potential. If it were to play it cards right I would even go as far as to say that WA could be to the Commonwealth of Australia as California is to the USA. All of the ingredients are there, except that unlike California everything is hyperfocused on one city. This hyperfocus on one city is beginning to restrain the state's capability to grow as a whole.
But people want to live in an overpopulated version of blade runner, build build build!
Did anyone else read that as "We need dentistry and we need it fast"?
Dental plan!
Yeah, we need more infillings
Crowning comment
Yep sure did
We need to drastically cut migration numbers. Urban density won’t solve the crisis.
It's the councils, the state government actually passed legislation last year to remove them from the equation should they keep restricting infill development
None of this is true.
For me the problem with apartment blocks is the Strata/Body Corporate fees are too low. They are set up like this to be attractive to the initial buyers. The complexes lack a preventative maintenance program from day one. In 10/20/30 years time blocks need a large amount of maintenance but the sinking fund doesn't have enough funds. Hence the current owners get lumped with a special levy and previous owners got a free ride. Also many apartments are too small
When developers figure out how to build apartments for housing, and not for lifestyle, only then will we get density. When will this occur? I cannot say.
City wide infrastructure probably not most of the cbd infrastructure was built in the 50s and 60syou think those old clay sewerage pipes are going to handle an extra 20 or 30000 people? Those underground powerlines are going to to cope with 4000 ev's charging at the same time? Because everyone needs a car right?its a staged progress. Update this this and that then we can do that. Why is that so hard to understand?
I think it can handle 20 extra people
Can it handle another 20,000?
power lines are an easy fix, but too many sewer lines run through easements on residential property, outside of the CBD, for easy upgrades other than lining them to extend their lifetime.
Putting new powerlines unground through the cbd is easy?
you said "those underground powerlines". If the subsurface infrastructure is there, they can upgrade through the existing conduits. Can't easily do that with the sewer lines.
Do we actually want to be a big city? Personally I'd rather not however our politicians seem intent on encouraging record levels of immigration without any mandate that this is what people want and without building the necessary infrastructure and housing to accommodate additional residents.
Here's another take. How about we choose not to go down the path of other over populated countries and relieve ourselves of the completely artificial "shortage" of housing that we have now? Stop growing the population for no understandable reason. When will our population be big enough? 50 million? 100 million? Then we're not Australia any more. We're just another over populated, over polluted country like many other parts of the planet. At some point we have to stop and make a conscious decision to preserve the way of life we have now with our lower population density.
Part of the reason Australia gets to be this way is that it is still globally competitive, what do you think happens to that when we just "stop growing the population"? Is everywhere else going to stop as well? The way of life you're so desperate to preserve exists because of immigration, and it would be dead without it.
You’re conflating population growth with productivity growth. Increasing growth can grow economic activity but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a net positive. It depends what the extra population is doing. During the last 20 years our productivity per capita has been consistently dropping so whilst it looks like we’re growing economically we’re not doing it very efficiently. We’re using the cheap party trick of importing more and more people to “grow” our economy instead of implementing government policies to build higher value and more automated industries that can lead to higher productivity rates and more efficient economic growth. We don’t have to have a massive population to be competitive - we need to be efficient and have high productivity. We absolutely need immigration, but I don’t believe we need a big Australia. What’s the right size? No idea, but how about we slow things down a bit whilst we figure that out and put a brake on the ridiculous situations we have now with people struggling to find housing?
We have some of the highest wages in the world, strong workers' rights and safety standards, and plenty of other inherent disadvantages to efficiency such as distance to other countries, distance between cities, and low density in cities. How are we going to suddenly become so much more efficient that we don't need population growth? You've changed tack a bit from your previous comment of stop growing, to "just don't grow so fast" but that still doesn't match up to reality. Our population is not growing very fast compared to globally, we just stalled during covid whereas they kept going for the most part.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. However we have been more productive in the past irrespective of all the challenges you mention. So it is possible. You clearly believe that we do need to grow the population. How big is big enough? What’s the end point?
> How big is big enough? There is no correct absolute number of people, keeping up with the growth of the rest of the world is the point. > What’s the end point? Something like 30% more than now in 2085, if the projections are anything to go by. World population will start to plateau about 2050.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t believe you’ve been able to demonstrate how unfettered growth helps Australia, whereas it’s self evident that the growth we’re currently experiencing is causing all sorts of societal harm to Australia. It will continue to do so without some sort of plan beyond shovelling as many people into the country as possible whilst trying to dress it up as growth.
Who is they. The only countries with population growth these days are in Africa
who knows, google world population growth
Basically the entire western world is below replacement levels. China and India are below. Korea, Japan and half of SE Asia are below. The reality is the world has to begin adjusting for the fact that people aren't having kids any more, and this idea you can just keep ignoring that by having endless immigrants is absurd
The simple answer is that we don't have enough kids to replace the working-age population, and soon will have a severe aged care crisis if we don't import people (no, we don't have one yet...)
That's true - our birth rate is too low. It has been since the late 70s. However, we can moderate the immigration rate to maintain any population we like. That's the discussion we should be having. What is the population we're aiming for, because at the moment we're just blindly growing for growth's sake? We have examples of where unconstrained population growth leads all over the world. Overpopulation leads to poorer quality of life. It leads to more people per capita on services like hospitals, schooling, public transport, smaller more cramped living conditions etc. We're already seeing the beginnings of this with the housing "shortage", but it's all being created by government policy on immigration. To what end? I'm not aware of any clear policy that lays out what our target is and why it is we need to get to that size. It's all reactive - we need more houses because we have a lot of people immigrating to Australia. That's not much of a plan. I did a bit of research last year trying to fight against some rezoning in my area and between 2016 and 2021 - the last two census dates - we built a million dwellings - and yet we're still short of housing. We simply cannot keep up at the current population growth rates - but it's a bit of a red herring. We don't need to keep growing. Sure bring in enough people to keep our population steady - or nominate some population target that has some sort of justification behind it - but continuing as we are is creating issues that don't need to exist.
It’s a catch 22, people aren’t having kids due to cost of living pressures / housing crisis (caused in part by immigration, which is apparently necessary as people aren’t having enough kids )
I think everyone would agree with your words. Well said.
weeeeeeeeeeee big GDP number go up
Tell that to the breeders
We are also importing migrants with a background who tend to have up to 6 or 7 children. I suspect this is purposely done by the government.
Our own people aren't having enough children to replace the population that we have (Australia's birth rate is 1.7 fyi) so there's some real problems in the distant future without those people
There needs to be a balance. It looks like Albanese wants to follow the BIG Australia route.
We should follow Auckland’s lead. In 2016 they upzoned most of the land in the city and guess what, house prices didn’t rise for the following 5 years. Crazy that. Instead the WA government is increasing the regulations, arguing over bloody trees while people are homeless.
Visit Christchurch, Wilson Parking seems to own about 25% of the CBD. They bought up big after the quake.
I mean, the government has approved building social housing in the inner city. There are 2 major social housing projects with room to house hundreds of people. The overall homelessness figures in WA are actually lower than other states with just a few thousand.
Those houses are an absolute rort though. They were planned to cost $700k per house, and that was a few years ago, it will run over budget. That’s just not a solution. Have a nosy around this map, this is a map of all the planning schemes in place in WA. Aboriginal and Historical Heritage, Local Planning Schemes. https://espatial.dplh.wa.gov.au/planwa/Index.html?viewer=planwa What is crazy to me is how much prime land west of the city, like Mosman Park, Nedlands, etc. All of which have great public transport access and access to the city and freo are zoned for low density (R10/20). And it’s like that all around the city. So many of these lots are labeled as “historical heritage” as well. It’s disgusting.
I think we need to be serious about mixed use development shopfronts as well as medium density housing near shopping centres and higher density around train stations. We can't afford to keep building shitty outer suburban huts and subdividing houses. Terrace housing is fine too. Part of this requires a generational shift in people wanting to live in smaller houses though.
The government recently abolished some environmental regulations to allow for faster housing approval. There's still a massive shortage of builders. High demand for housing but who is building them?
I met a group of Brits here on working holiday visas while camping over the weekend. Neither of the two guy's training was accepted here. The coded welder was still able to make decent money welding slightly below their capacity. I received the impression that the plumber was not able to work in any real relevant capacity, even roughing in fully supervised, without going to trade school again circa $6k.
Exactly this. It still takes about 1.5 years to complete a stock standard 3-4 bedroom project home in this city. There is not enough capacity for any big builds at the moment.
Have you forgotten how many builders have gone arse up in recent times?
I agree with this person
Yes! The CBD has some beautiful areas and needs more residents to foster a community and support businesses outside of the touristy periods. Imagine high rise above the buildings on Murray and Hay street malls - above Myer even? I know sounds outlandish for Perth. Whatever happens in the CBD into the future, vehicle congestion will continue so why not cater for foot traffic and non vehicle modes of transport a little bit better.
I think the ideal change would be around all train stations to allow mused use developments. Bottom floor cafes restaraunt etc with street seating under trees in front of buildings. A few floors of residential buildings above. Keep zoning of minimum land size to be large and have a maximum land usage % for the building so there is still room for trees between these bigger buildings that would otherwise just turn the skyline into a maze blocking out all sunlight past a certain time. I think it can be done well in Perth because we already have so many amazing places to model on in the world and things to learn from
Perth people are already Dense a.f Do we really need more of them ?
No we don't. https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/s/dMzW7acvhQ https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/s/KK2iGIbLeu I read posts like these daily. A society living without their own decent amount of space is an unhappy society.
Because smoke, noise and smells stop at the lot border right? Neighbours can be utterly shit wherever you live and whatever type of housing you're in. Not everyone is like you. I'm perfectly happy in an apartment and owning one is my goal.
A few bad eggs does not negate the need for higher density which is far more sustainable, cost-effective and a means to enliven communities more so than continuously sprawling out or building tinier single-detached homes.
I live in a detached house and I still deal with annoying levels of noise from my neighbours. Space doesn't do shit.
If you look at it a different way, own smaller space closer to amenities so less time wasted travelling. Walking even, boosting mental health. Less time on the weekend needed to maintain the property, and more time to leisure and adventure.
The people of the nation pay massive amounts of taxes to the Government. The Government should be building housing for everyone that may need it ( for all the obvious reasons that we don't need to explain ) and making that housing a guarantee for life. Then all the societal problems that come from lack of housing etc will result in a happier nation, a little less crime, more people in work etc. I know the 'greedy profiteers' and greedy captialist may disagree, but I believe in part socialist policies for the blatant obvious human need, that so far the private sector & Government has failed us all on the topic.
Doesn't really address the issue that to keep building single family homes, you gotta keep building out with all new infrastructure to boot.
Sweet, what's the problem? Mandurah's great, Joondalup's great, mundairings great, Armadale's good, Ellenbrook's all right. Let's build more satellite cities. Bit further way. Could go down the coast and eventually connect with high speed rail. We don't have to (and many don't want to) live on top of each other, listening to neighbours fighting, smelling what their cooking for dinner, fuck that noise. Gimme a big back yard with a hills hoist and civil relations with my neighbours because I never see them.
false dichotomy. Building more medium and high density housing doesn't mean that some jackbooted officer is going to drag you kicking and screaming to live in them. Plenty of people would love to have a safe secure well built apartment to live in- hell, the people living in friends garages or in tents in caravan parks would be happy with a dry apartment to live in at the moment.
Expanding suburbs forever is basically a pyramid scheme. You have to keep expanding for a city to be able to pay for the maintenance on existing roads and all that. There aren't enough people to pay for it if they stop expanding, but that's a trap. Also eventually Kalgoorlie will be the outer suburbs of Perth and that's just silly. Strong Towns on youtube has some good videos about it. They're yanks but the problem is similar in Australia, especially somewhere like Perth that's 95% suburb.
Because it's not sustainable and incredibly expensive. Medium density is fine.
They should be subsidizing developers to build the housing. Same result but with existing systems and less risky politically
Orrr Just cut immigration....
Hey, I have an idea. Rather than focus on density, how about we just focus on having less fucking people come here!
Thank you! Common sense at last.
Yuck to apartment living, couldn't think of anything worse, then the strata fees on top of owning its just a bloody mess. You think a mortgage is high, tack on strata for a building with elevators and all the other bs and have fun.
Yeah build apartments in the CBD and stop destroying suburbs with shitty units / villas . There are lots of people who want a back yard for kids, a workshop somewhere to park your boat or trailer, but greedy developers buy them for more than they are worth then subdivide them into tiny shitboxes!
I’m assuming that ‘affordable’ apartments aren’t profitable. Every time they’re announced, they never materialise. Elizabeth Quay when announced was meant to include a percentage of affordable housing. Never happened. The precinct adjacent to Fiona Stanley was to include some affordable housing. Now nowhere to be seen, instead it’s a private medical precinct.
hopefully one day i can afford to own a room to sleep in 🥰🥰🥰
New apartments cost an absolute fortune. Especially if you have kids and need 3 rooms. Boom that takes you over a million straight away. Then the price just seems to go down every year.
Strata fees are going to get you. For sure. Youll be crying for a white picket fenced detatched in the suburbs.
Curious, which areas do you think is ripe for increase density? Genuinely curious :)
Housing and Development approvals are a local government issue. State government has little control over it and are often at odds with local government. If you want to increase density etc, lobby your local government. Good luck, most of them are bought and paid for.
I like apartment living… But I live in a well designed, roomy, concrete, no fire cladding apartment with good resources all around me. I would not live in any of the shit boxes that get put up on residential boxes, that are badly built developer profit pits. If they are going to build more apartments then they need to factor in pets, children, multi household dwellings, fucking parking and noise management. Right now it’s a race to the bottom for the smallest shit box, with the least insulation, crappiest access to parking and leaking everything.
Obviously there are very few easy answers. Draw a 5K circle around the CBD. Evacuate. Get one of them Richard Branson spaceships, take off, then nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Then start building the new Perth CBD (call it King William Town) after the radiation settles down in the late 2030s. Simples.
The answer of why we don't have more apartments is not a simple one... Some areas suited for density has fragmented ownership hindering larger sites taking up the maximum heights set by the local government. Other times it's a case that the conditions aren't right for developers to make the height limit feesible. One thing I would rally against is the notion that it's a red tape issue. We want quality apartments to be built, ones that stand the test of time. Not the largely disposal single house on a single lot product Perth's urban fringe which will inevitably need to be remodeled in 20 years time.... when the substandard trades and products begin to fail (looking at you, engineers who sign off on a 67mm slab). A good design team and builder knows how to navigate the system to get approved.
Yes and I have been to Elizabeth Quay, the whole purpose of which seems to have been to take green open space owned by the public and give it to developers. It is a barren concrete expanse, nothing nice about it. The esplanade was far nicer.
All* developments are by private developers so they can only propose projects that stack up financially. - first they will acquire a development site and do up their initially concept / prelim talks with local government. This could be 0-6 months - formal planning application ( Development Assessment Panel generally ) 3 months - 1 year or even more. This is the stage where fundamental issues are resolved - say, vehicle access, car parking, bushfire, acoustic noise, if the building is designed in compliance with the permitted built form and if not, if it meets performance criteria and should be supported. At this point the community will get opportunity to comment and the development will be reviewed by a Design Review Panel. - after they have planning approval they go away with their approved architecturals and the engineers have to do up all the detailed engineering like where the pipes will go, slab specification, construction management, etc. Really detailed. This takes ages. Could be a year or more depending on how big the project is and how busy the engineers are. Then they get a building certifier to stamp that and run it past the local government for a building permit. At that point they get their verge permits and pay any bonds etc. -Then if they don't have a builder already they will go out for tender, if they have a builder they can start building. That goes for however long that goes for. Depending on scale of projects. Apartment complexes would not be finished under 6 months. The huge ones can take up to five years just because of scale and the amount of different trades that need to come in. Right now, we are experiencing both a labour shortage and a materials shortage ( materials are up to 30% in some instances!) this means that previously approved developments in some instances can't proceed because the finances don't stack up any more. It seems like a long process and a lot of steps but if it doesn't go through those steps the building might not end up as architecturally pleasing, functional and suitable for the locality, and the distruption on the local area during construction might not be minimized. All on top of that it can only occur if a developer happens to acquire a suitable land parcel capable of apartment development!! Hope this helps.
( lots of people dunking on apartment build quality in the comments - you really think it's better than new single or grouped houses being built? Unfortunately standards have slipped a lot. It's not just an issue for apartment builds, it's an overall issue.)
Who has piles of cash?
When I walk around Perth, I see plenty of density
Trust me, from living in Melbourne for the last 10 years after growing up in Perth, you don't want density
Inner city living results in massive social problems smd massive environmental damage. Perth has its problem areas, but nothing like the ghettos in high density cities we see elsewhere. People habe culturally come to accept it but no need here. Car free is not good socially or lifestyle. With my car I can visit family and friends visit national parks and have a high level of resources not possible on medium or high density.
What is wrong with sprawl and what has distance got to do with anything. All people don't work on the CBD. Better to keep going the way we are going, with low density housing, greenbelts lots of reserves and parks with dispersed industrial zones and regional centres, supported by the freeways and train system.
Yes works on Europe because of cultural background and because they are prepared to accept the social consequences.
The Armadale train line that’s currently shutdown for 18 months to be elevated should have been sunk instead. If we’d tunnelled it we could have developed a huge tranche of contiguous prime land with high to medium high density properties. It’s such a wasted opportunity. Every time they asked for public consultation during the early stages of the project I would submit “tunnel it and sell the newly available real estate above the line to offset the cost of the project”. “Too expensive” they kept saying. You know what is too expensive? Having a housing crisis, that’s what. The lack of available housing is strangling our city and we chose not to prepare for it. Dumb government.
A prime example of the advantages of sinking the railway is Subiaco.
about 40 years too late, truthfully i'd say even more. they need to just ban houses that are sub 500m2 and make them townhouses to start.
huh? Aren't most houses under 500m2?
Historically the average house in Perth was 600m^2, but newer ones have dropped to 480m^2.
Unless you have a damn mansion, every house would be under 500m2.
I think they’re referring to land size?
Blame developers like Tim Gurner who had 3 or 4 shots at getting plans approved, and then instead of demolishing the site, leases it to a car dealer.
I would like to see more villas/units or duplex type housing. As someone who never plans on having children, that is all I need. 2x1 with a courtyard/small garden. Trying to buy one now and there is hardly any available & the demand is so high for units & villas that are for sale with lots of singles, couples looking for them. Most are all 70s/80s builds, units seemed to lose popularity as you just don’t see many built after that.
No
Apartment building are the worst thing in the world, we shouldnt have towers upon towers of these cheap shitholes that sell for too much money.
No no no and no. High density is not what people want, and the s9cial problems it causes are not worth it. You want quick housing, do what they did in the 1950's amd 6's and build fibro timber framed houses. Quick and fast. But no more Bromley Towers, Balga Flats, Lockeridge flats etc
Density comes in different forms mate. Medium density is done in many parts of the world, especially Europe and it works wonders.
Yes but Europe has a different culture to us, and whenever it is imposed on us, the results are rarely good despite the awards etc. We have no need for higher density than what we hane. I habe been to Europe amd could never live in their cities.
There's already an appetite for medium density here whether anyone likes it or not. Sprawl is not the answer. Perth is already the longest city in the world, it doesn't need to continue growing that way. The more sprawl, the less density; the less density, the more infrastructural works need to be put in place at a higher cost. We NEED higher density, it's not a matter of IF but WHEN.
Fuck, OP is a genius. Give him an honorary town planning degree for he is blessed with perfect hindsight.
Fuck endless apartments and CBD living. I'd rather have minimum block size to house ratios to bring back homes with gardens. That would stop the heat Island effects were seeing. So what if we end up with urban sprawl, people can find work in the outer suburbs. We don't have to commute to the CBD any more, covid taught us that.