HIA says urban growth boundaries 'ineffective'

The Housing Industry Association WA has labelled urban growth boundaries 'ineffective', and called for policy certainty in the housing sector.

The full text of an HIA statement is pasted below

The Housing Industry Association today criticised Planning Minister Alannah MacTiernan's call for a reduction to "Urban Sprawl"

"Demand pressure for affordable housing on the fringes of city, from all demographic sectors, will ensure continued growth of our major cities is inevitable," said HIA WA Executive Director John Dastlik.

In recent times, most State Governments have guided urban growth through the preparation of metropolitan strategies, such as Network City, all of which promote a land constraint effect.

"HIA supports the development and implementation of metropolitan strategies for major cities and regional cities - but they must provide certainty to the residential development industry" said Mr Dastlik.

"Urban Growth Boundaries are an ineffective management strategy for the supply of land, generate political and social conflict, and artificially inflate the cost of land supply" he added.

Governments have a duty to ensure an adequate supply of land on the fringe of our cities to cater for urban development, and also within existing urban areas.

Mr Dastlik said, "Governments primary role should be to facilitate streamlined planning processes, providing key infrastructure to facilitate residential growth and ensuring adequate land supply to meet growing demands for new housing."

"Adequate supply of developed urban land on the fringe of the metropolitan area, must be set as a high priority by this Government and all its agencies - fail to do this and affordable housing will be lost to this generation, and
those to follow" said Mr Dastlik.