Hammers are not the Solution to Housing!
Pictured: GANSW Pattern Book Design Competition entry by Andrew Burges Architects - Mid-rise apartment winners
I have always been intrigued by the expression; ‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. The analogy can apply to other tools off course, or a particular profession’s perspective of a situation.
You’re probably wondering what this has to do with housing?
I’ve read countless opinion pieces from professions and government agencies proclaiming that they have the solution to the housing crisis. Or, conversely that the solutions fall outside of their domain; without any understanding, or curiosity surrounding the constraints of that other system ie. someone else’s hammer. These positions are inherently limited.
Here’s a few arguments you might be familiar with:
Economists -
‘It’s all about supply and demand - we need more supply!’ or the alternate view; ‘Kerb immigration’ (demand).
Council Planners -
‘There’s enough approvals and capacity in the existing system. We should look to the developers that are sitting on their approvals’
Architects -
‘We just need to design clever solutions to overcome the problem’
[Yes, I’m an Architect, we are not immune]
Paralleling this siloing of understanding are preconditions held by respective disciplines and the public surrounding the delivery of housing. Here’s a few:
Council Planners -
‘We need to protect existing neighbourhood character’ [So we put all new development on noisy roads and in town centres].
‘But…’ [I ask] ‘What about a desirable future neighbourhood character?’
Developers -
‘We need to make a profit to survive - the economic climate is not suitable for building right now.’
State Government -
‘We want to enable the private market to deliver [private] housing’: or what it implies: ’We don’t want to carry the risk and responsibility of building [public] housing.’
The Public -
‘Yes, we need more housing, but….’ say the Cartel owners of the 77% of R2 land in NSW that get to vote for their Local Councillors… ‘Not in my back yard please’
I’m hoping by this point that you see the problem. It’s like trying to align a thread through multiple needles that don’t want, or understand, the need to cooperate.
It is worth examining the proposal for the NSW Housing ‘Pattern Book’ in this light following the GANSW competition last year (2024). Not to critique the specific solutions, but rather to understand whether the system will (or will not) sustain them. The competition covered both low-rise (2-3 storey) terraces and mid-rise (4-6 storey) apartment buildings.
GANSW - ‘Pattern Book’ Competition
The competition’s premise was to provide a series of solutions that could be readily adapted (and approved) for different site conditions. However, competitors were required to design the project for a specific site provided to them for the purposes of the competition.
Given that these projects would need to be approved under the current planning framework, success would be dependant on:
Availability of similar site conditions across the Sydney metropolitan area;
Permissibility and applicable territory (suitable zoning) across broad Local Government Areas (LGAs) for that scale; and,
Viability of the proposed scale/housing typology.
The competition included 3 low-rise terraces proposals (including a student project), and 3 mid-rise proposals. The key issues with regard to broad application of the proposals beyond issues of economic viability - which we can assume were undertaken for the selected sites given an intention to build - are site selection and permissibility.
Site Selection:
You would hope that the selected sites would be generic enough to demonstrate their suitability to typical suburban conditions.
Were they? No. They appear to have been selected with an intention to build the projects for specific sites by partnering with other government agencies.
Here’s an extract from the competition webpage:
“The winners in the professional category will get the chance to have their designs built on 5 NSW Government-owned sites from Homes NSW, Landcom and Sydney Olympic Park.”
This approach has merit towards project demonstration but perhaps undermines credibility for viability given the projects are subsidised by government owned land. For the purposes of a ‘Pattern Book’ wouldn’t it have been better to have partnered with a private developer on private land to demonstrate viability?
Low Rise - Site Selection:
Sydney’s middle ring suburban lots are typically within the range of 15 metres wide by 40 metres deep; give or take 3 metres in the frontage and 5 metres in the depth. The selected terraces sites were atypical lots with three frontages, or rare wide frontage lots (18 metres), yet propose just 3 dwellings for such privileged conditions, and accordingly perform no better than a dual occupancy on a regular suburban site for density. In the case of the site selection for the student project, it was an exceedingly rare site with 4 frontages in a greenfields subdivision that bears little relevance for metropolitan infill development. Can such idiosyncrasy really result in ‘A Pattern’?
Mid-Rise - Permissibility:
With regard to the mid rise solutions, the issue has less to do with site selection, and more to do with applicable zoning. Four and six storey scales require permissibility in the planning controls of about 14 metres height / 1.2:1 FSR and 20 metres height / 1.8:1 FSR respectively for suburban mid block sites; with higher yield capability (FSR) on corners, block-ends, contiguous development (zero lot line) or retail based mixed-use projects. A review across multiple LGAs would indicate that availability of such development controls is rare, yet the proposals were reliant on such conditions.
Market Expectations:
One of the mid-rise proposals provided the majority of its bedrooms in arrangements that are dependant on common access galleries for light and ventilation - compromising the prospective residents’ visual and acoustic privacy for development efficiency.
Do these proposals collectively thread the needles of economics (viability), planning (permissibility) and community (acceptance)? No! While the specifics or each proposal could be critiqued, including positive and aspirational traits, it is beyond the scope of the discussion here, and irrelevant to broad uptake as the ‘Pattern Book’s ambition.
There’s a bigger question at stake, which is ‘Could these proposals be viable, permissible and socially acceptable?’ and to that, the answer is; Yes, but this is where Land Economists, Planners, Architects, Developers and the interests of the Public must align. There was seemingly an ambition by NSW Planning to address at least one critical ingredient of the ‘Pattern Book’s success, with or without an understanding of its impact on the competition’s outcome.
NSW Planning - ‘Diverse and Well Located Homes’
In late 2023, NSW Planning issued its ‘Explanation of Intended Effect’ (EIE) for a proposed policy referred to as ‘Diverse and Well Located Homes’ which was intended to better enable low and mid-rise housing through proposed broadening and standardisation of zoning at these intermediate scales across Sydney’s Local Government Areas. The scope of these changes was to be applied to the broad, underdeveloped 400 metre to 1,200 metre bands around metropolitan railway stations - notably beyond areas already designated for TOD tower development. Sadly, by the end of 2024 NSW Planning had either come to the conclusion this it was too hard, or abandoned it (perhaps under political pressure) at the State Government’s request.
To be clear, the draft ‘Diverse and Well Located Homes’ policy (as published in the earlier EIE) was flawed. I have critiqued it elsewhere (in submissions to NSW Planning - see link here), but the policy's intention and purpose was clear and necessary, ie. to enable ‘diverse and well located homes’ between currently polarised supply choices; towers as TOD (Transport Oriented Development) or suburban sprawl at the city’s metropolitan periphery. Sadly, in the absence of such a policy the ‘Pattern Book’ solutions too cannot be enabled for broad application. And so, no matter how clever the architectural proposal [Yes, there were some]; without an enabling planning framework, it can never become "A Pattern".
Concluding Remarks
What is needed is far greater cooperation to develop complete multidisciplinary ‘toolbox’ housing policies beyond ineffective single discipline ‘hammers’, but this requires genuine leadership and cooperation across industry and government, and sadly this is what is most lacking; through a lack of curiosity, will, or political abstinence.
If we are going to address the issues surrounding housing availability and its associated affordability, we need Economists, Land Economist, Planners, Architects, Landscape Architects, governments and the development industry to be sitting in the same room and far more curious and open to each other’s positions. Only then might we develop credible solutions to addressing the housing crisis.