Yesterday, Victoria’s Planning Minister, Richard Wynne, trumpeted two a new suburbs for Melbourne – Fraser Rise and Deanside – that will supposedly ease Melbourne’s housing affordability crisis. From The Victorian Planning Authority:
The new suburbs will be developed on 1,940 hectares of land between Caroline Springs and the emerging suburb of Aintree (at Rockbank North). They will create local jobs and make homes more affordable for young Victorians.
The new suburbs will be developed over more than 10 years, eventually becoming home to 20,000 dwellings and 14,000 jobs.
The planning framework allows for up to seven government schools in the future and three non-government schools. Additional bus routes are being planned that will connect the suburbs, as they grow, to key major centres such as Watergardens, Caroline Springs, St Albans and the Sunshine Hospital…
Developers are giving back by helping fund community services and facilities that new residents need. Developers building Fraser Rise and Deanside will pay $195 million in Growth Area Infrastructure Contributions for schools, public transport and emergency service facilities. Another $395 million in developer contributions to the City of Melton will pay for local infrastructure and land acquisition to deliver community services such as children’s services, sporting facilities and arterial roads.
Supply is a key cornerstone of housing affordability, which is why the Victorian Government is rezoning 100,000 lots of land in key growth areas in two years – and speeding up the time is takes for land to be shovel ready.
More from The AFR:
The latest release comes as land prices surge, with population growth pumping demand up for new home sites in Melbourne’s growth areas…
Land prices are rising rapidly. The cost of buying a 434-square-metre plot in Melbourne’s outer suburbs surged 6.5 per cent in November, hitting a new median price of $318,500.
That increase, as measured by project marketers Red23, equated to a 31.5 per cent rise in lot prices in the previous 12 months and lifted a standard house-and-land package to around $550,000.
So, “the new suburbs will be developed over more than 10 years, eventually becoming home to 20,000 dwellings”. This means these homes will house around 54,000 people some time in the distant future. Big deal. Melbourne’s population is currently growing by around 125,000 people a year:
And under the State Government’s own forecasts, which have already been overshot following the 2016 Census, Melbourne’s population is projected to grow by 97,000 people annually for the next 35 years:
So these new suburb will eventually provide homes for roughly five month’s worth of current population growth.
I hope the Victorian Government is planning to roll-out new suburbs like this ad infinitum (assuming densification as well), because that’s what will be required to outrun the population ponzi choking Melbourne.
