I have previously labelled RMIT planning professor, Michael Buxton, a housing BANANA (“Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”) because he has spent much of the past decade simultaneously opposing moves to expand Melbourne’s urban growth boundary (UGB), while also opposing high rise development across the CBD and inner areas, as well as voicing concern about declining housing affordability.
What Buxton has effectively endorsed is the UK’s system of growth containment combined with zoning against height in most locations, along with the preservation of existing “heritage”. All this is inimical to achieving affordability, as experience in the UK shows.
