Let's put it on the table from the outset: vital affordable housing can’t happen when the construction industry is under-resourced and the profit motive is overcapitalised.

Housing is unaffordable because feasibility studies don’t stack up: the cost of land, construction labour and materials, taxes and the profit drive are the main game.

Town planning, which controls the types, size and ‘envelope form’ of buildings that can be built, and building regulations that dictate every component of construction, play a much smaller part in overall costs.

But that doesn’t stop the ill-informed commentary and suggestions that changing them could radically reduce costs. They’re minor skirmishes at the edges, a distraction in the media, avoiding bitter truths. Let's deal with each of these three heresies in turn.

Planning

In 2018, the previous Liberal government, led by Premier Gladys Berejiklian, created the Greater Sydney Commission, with Chief Commissioner Lucy Turnbull creating a "30-minute polycentric metropolis of three cities" strategy, with the Eastern Harbour City, the Central River City and the Western Parkland City.

NSW Premier Chris Minns (and Planning Minister Paul Scully) propose rewriting the overall strategy into a “single unified regional blueprint” known as The Sydney Plan.

They’re having an each-way bet. Make more job opportunities in the west (where it's mostly housing) and make more housing in the east (where there are supposedly more work opportunities).

The problem for all state governments is they don't actually physically plan their capitals, or anything really. All that vital work is done by the third tier: local councils. The boys’ ideas will have the same impact as the earlier girls’ plan. Nothing.

Sadly, local councils don't want a bar of being told what to do by the State. The closer you get to the CBD, with wealthier residents and more NIMBYs, the more the council’s computer says no. The very places more affordable housing is needed have resisted all entreaties to develop decent plans.

Not to say that there aren’t issues. Using FSR in planning controls is clumsy and past its use-by date, and much of the Apartment Design Guide has very perverse outcomes – just two issues in minutiae.

A funky graphic, a slick memo, a bunch of appendices and a cute presso won’t change the key issues.

Regulations

Andrew Bragg, a liberal senator based in Paddington, NSW, has an idea to revolutionise construction costs by reducing building regulations from 2000 pages down to 80. I gather from his previous blather that he’s obsessed with single homes, so maybe he thinks a return to 19th-century hovels is a good idea.

He doesn’t seem to know the National Construction Code – NCC – deals with all manner of buildings, from high-rises to hospitals to hotels. Cutting and gutting the building code for larger buildings is what leads to disasters like the Grenfell Tower fire in London.

Today’s building regulations originate with the 1666 Great Fire of London, in two aspects: health and safety. That’s what we get from our Australian regulations, of which we should be rightfully proud since they ensure safety and amenity.

Not to say that there aren’t instances in which it's overly pedantic or over the top, such as requirements for sprinklers in a 4-storey building and up. But that requires a scalpel, not Bragg’s swinging axe.

And BTW, having worked in New Zealand, I can’t let Bragg’s suggestion that their regulations are only 50 pages stand. A quick check will tell him that's the preface. NZ regs are similar to Australia’s but 500 pages shorter across the ditch, without the need for states’ exceptions.

Process

The third of the trio is former building commissioner David Chandler, who boldly said in the SMH that he is the man to solve the puzzle of affordable housing. Most of the article dealt with Chandler's braggadocio, but we can discern some good ideas between the lines.

He's advocating smaller apartment buildings with smaller units, a less complicated typology with lower costs, and a wider range of builders. Sounds a lot like a revival of 3-storey walk-up flats to me.

Regular readers will know that I have been designing 3SWUF (as I call them) and advocating for them here in A&D for over two years. We’re currently finalising a pattern book with a multitude of solutions for low-rise apartment buildings.

I’d like to think that he may have come by some of that from my columns. Ah, probably not, as he sledges everyone working on affordable housing: "No one has sat down and thought through the fact that there’s a very seriously disenfranchised group of prospective people who want to become self-sufficient in housing to actually get on that ladder…”. No one? Really? Except Mr Chandler!

We know 3SWUF is a great solution, but they’re not being built. And Mr Chandler’s idea to use government-gifted land and screwing down the construction costs won't help. He shows no understanding of how the planning controls prevent that typology or even how the housing industry works. Ignoring the process won’t mean it goes away.

And finally

We architects thrash about controls and codes daily. We should love suggestions attacking oppressive planning decisions and onerous regulations. But we know these three have nothing useful to offer. They have zilch understanding of what’s really needed to encourage affordable housing.

Cross-Sections are Friday musings from Tone Wheeler, formerly of Tone on Tuesday. Amateurs draw plans; professionals draw sections – never at cross purposes.

Three men, smart but not wise, on controls and regulations

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