A new Urban Renewal Compact is needed in growth and renewal areas in Melbourne and Sydney says SGS Principal and Partner Patrick Fensham. The Greater Sydney Commission has proposed ‘Growth Infrastructure Compacts’ which will involve state agencies aligning their asset management and investment plans to government-endorsed development sequencing and infrastructure plans in major planned renewal areas. The first is to be developed...

Comparing population growth across Melbourne shows a clear need to increase the supply of medium-density housing into the missing middle. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population growth data (2015-16) found that South Morang [1] had the biggest population increase in Melbourne during 2015-16, with almost 5,000 people added. Other suburbs with high growth included Cranbourne East, Craigieburn – Mickleham and Point Cook...

An innovative approach to value capture can fund infrastructure, affordable housing and more sustainable cities. Developers should be charged a licence fee for the ‘development rights’ they receive through planning approvals. This would be similar to the fees charged for access to other government regulated markets, for example, liquor distribution, commercial fisheries and broadcasting bands. Development licence fees would be calculated on the uplift in value generated through more intensive use of land made possible by development consents or rezonings. As price takers, developers would pass the cost of the licence fee back to the sellers of development...

ln the recent flurry of reports on value capture (from Infrastructure Victoria, the Commonwealth Government and Infrastructure Australia [1], amongst others) there has been little attempt to distinguish contributions for infrastructure based on value capture from other types of development contributions.

It’s cheaper to provide last resort housing to homeless people than to leave them sleeping rough, a new SGS Economics and Planning cost-benefit analysis has found. The University of Melbourne’s Sustainable Society Institute homelessness study The Case for Investing in Last-Resort Housing found that 75 per cent of economic benefits of providing emergency accommodation would flow back to the community. The cost-benefit analysis led by SGS Principal and Partner Ellen Witte...