Targeted infrastructure investment needed to boost housing supply

Governments across the country continue to grapple with solutions to the housing supply crisis that is gripping the nation.

The need to address supply constraints has been ongoing, however, with recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirming that Western Australia is the fastest growing state in Australia, and with housing affordability pressures continuing to mount, the need to take action is becoming even more critical.

According to CoreLogic, the median price of a new home in Perth has tipped over $650,000 and the rental vacancy rate is sitting at just 1.4 per cent. 

In a bid to unlock much needed housing supply, UDIA WA recently released a report that identifies critical infrastructure requirements across three key growth corridors in Perth, which if funded could unlock land to bring forward supply and ultimately facilitate the delivery of close to 90,000 new homes.

UDIA WA’s Growth Areas Infrastructure Requirements Report has identified that an investment of $421 million in strategic infrastructure would unlock land to catalyse the delivery of new homes in North Ellenbrook and Bullsbrook, East Wanneroo, and East Wellard and Mundijong. 

These areas have been identified, because the primary constraint to getting residential land delivered in these areas is catalyst infrastructure such as wastewater pump stations and trunk mains, power substations and feeder networks, and intersection and road upgrades.

The new report builds on work that started with our pre-budget submission to the State Government late last year, which identified enabling infrastructure requirements in several areas.

Land not an unlimited resource

UDIA WA’s state election campaign has also identified how crucial it is that infrastructure coordination, funding and delivery align with development pipeline intentions for undeveloped urban zoned land and potential future urban land.

We are confident that proper coordination would enable early planning and greater certainty for residential projects and more efficient delivery of much needed homes.

The report takes our initial recommendations in the pre-budget submission and our election campaign platform and goes a step further in providing specific detail around what immediate priority enabling infrastructure is required and the initial investment needed within the next term of government, as well as longer term infrastructure requirements.

The infrastructure requirements identified in this report are items/packages where industry believes there is a direct correlation between the infrastructure funding and accelerated delivery to market, and there is currently no funding committed (unless otherwise stated in the report).

A report like this is also important in highlighting that while there is land in Perth that has been zoned for urban or future urban use, it is not a simple process to bring that land to market and enable the delivery of housing.

Many people in the community have a misconception that urban zoned land is plentiful in a place like Perth, but the reality is, there are a myriad of constraints on this land from infrastructure to environmental issues that need to be addressed. In some cases, those constraints, particularly environmental, cannot be addressed and the land is fundamentally beyond access.

For the specific areas identified in the infrastructure requirements report, it is infrastructure limitations that are the key issue, but addressing these is possible.

To identify the critical infrastructure building blocks for key growth areas, a Working Group was formed with members of UDIA WA’s Infrastructure and Masterplanned Communities committees. It comprised developers, engineers and planners to ensure broad expertise and a holistic view.

The Working Group analysed different development areas across the Perth Metropolitan region which could deliver significant housing supply but that were constrained by a lack of infrastructure.

The intent is for the report to be regularly refreshed for infrastructure requirements in other growth areas, including Yanchep, Wungong, Karnup and the South West region to be considered further.

Infill development challenges

While unlocking new land for housing is one part of the puzzle, delivering housing across a range of areas in Perth is important. 

While this report focuses on the delivery of housing supply in new areas, infill development is another critical piece of that puzzle.

However, the challenges in relation to infill development are different in nature, and our Infill Development and Precincts Committee continues to also identify opportunities to increase the viability of medium and high density infill projects and accelerate the delivery of supply in that sector as well.