In September 2024, Patrick Fensham, Principal and Partner at SGS, joined Jonathan Green on ABC Radio National’s Blueprint for Living to unpack one of the most pressing issues of our time: the housing crisis.
They outlined ambitious national and state housing goals, including a national target of constructing 1.2 million new homes within the next five years. Victoria aims to build 80,000 dwellings or more over the next ten years, with 70 per cent to be in established suburbs.
The conversation addressed the broader context of the housing crisis, highlighting rising rents and the challenges facing new and aspiring homeowners who struggle to save for a deposit. They noted that the rate of new housing supply is partly lagging due to difficulties in the construction sector, including prolonged building times, labour shortages, and increased costs driven by global supply chain issues and inflation.
Patrick emphasised the potential confusion surrounding what housing targets can realistically achieve. He explained that the planning system's role is not to build housing but to create the planning frameworks that dictate where and how new housing can be constructed, providing the necessary ‘capacity’ or ‘envelope’ for future housing supply.
The discussion highlighted two critical types of infrastructure necessary to support housing development:
- Big-ticket City-Shaping Infrastructure: This includes large-scale public transport infrastructure.
- Local Infrastructure: This enhances community livability and resilience. With the construction of new housing in established suburbs, there is a vital need for supplementary local infrastructure such as parks, walking and cycling pathways, and tree canopies. There is a risk that this new infrastructure may be overlooked in the urgency to increase housing stock.
Patrick discussed the challenge of shifting from expanding cities outward to ‘backfilling’—that is, remaking established areas and potentially rebuilding cities for a sustainable future using new tools and innovations.
They explored three different types of infill development:
- Taller apartment buildings in central business districts (CBDs) and activity centres like Box Hill or Parramatta.
- The conversion of ‘brownfields,’ or old industrial land, into medium-density residential buildings.
- Attached and low-rise residential developments in ‘greyfields’, which are existing suburban areas currently dominated by detached housing and long, narrow lots.
The importance of having informed conversations about change was emphasised, engaging various communities affected by the housing crisis—prospective landowners and first-time buyers, established communities facing disruption, and those looking to age in place and downsize into new housing options.
There is a need for a more significant government role in the substantial backfilling task, especially in suburban ‘greyfields’. Interventions could include strategic land assembly—purchasing individual house lots to redevelop larger sites at higher densities with new amenities—and supporting new tenures and participatory models in the housing market, such as community land trusts.
Finally, Patrick highlighted the importance of this moment, marked by heightened interest in housing and planning, as an opportunity to innovate and effectively shape our future cities.
Listen to the full interview.
