Population growth exacerbates housing crisis - Bernard Salt

On very fast train Lizzie is right on, they actually work and exist in Aus, well Vic but they are defeated by too many stops.:confused:

Example: Where I live the Very Fast Train stops every station country unitl metro and then is express with 3 stops only to CBD. Takes 1 hour same as Road in normal times. Ok but not any faster.

But

The same line has an Express Run from Castlemaine once a day. It does not stop at all the Country two horse stations and guess what???? it is also 1hr to CBD..

However Castlemaine is 1.5hr to CBD by Road in good time and 2hr in peak.

FYI Peter 14.7
 
MichaelWhyte said:
Gold, bloody gold!! :D

I love this stuff:

1.4 million extra people in Sydney and Melbourne. The mind boggles.

Ah well, my cumfy top-end townhouses in Mona Vale are looking more and more like a good investment in the medium to long term.

Whenever I think the fear-mongers might have a point, I stop and project forward the population growth expectations and suddenly want to buy a LOT more property...

Cheers,
Michael
Click to expand...

Me too! And I expect plenty of the newcomers will want to live near the beach.

I assume you're aware of the North Narrabeen Master Plan, due to kick off once they finish with Newport...

http://www.pittwater.nsw.gov.au/bui...ing_for_the_Future/north_narrabeen_masterplan

The future is looking good for the Northern Beaches!

Cheers,

Shadow.
 
Shadow said:
I assume you're aware of the North Narrabeen Master Plan, due to kick off once they finish with Newport...
Click to expand...
Hi Shadow,

You bet I am! :D

If you look at the map on that link of the area under review as part of the redevelopment master plan, then the end of my PPOR street is actually within the red circle. Its just a couple of hundred metres from my house to the commercial area being redeveloped. My wife attended the community meetings and most residents were looking for a piaza style cafe and restaurant strip with access across Pittwater Rd to the lake and more beautification of the lakeside areas.

It will definitely lift the North Narrabeen area, which remains the sleeper suburb of the Northern Beaches IMHO. We're sitting tight on our big 1600m2 rainforest block with lake views and an expansive 4 bedroom house. I think she'll do alright by us in the years to come... ;)

Cheers,
Michael
 
New population forecast means rethink on urban planning

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24362277-25658,00.html

New population forecast means rethink on urban planning

Bernard Salt | September 18, 2008

NEW population projections by the Australian Bureau of Statistics released earlier this month change the ball game with regard to metropolitan planning.
Now is the time for state governments to review their plans and for developers to press for extensions to the urban form.

A series of strategic plans were released earlier this decade based on population projections flowing from the results of the 2001 census. The new projections based on the 2006 census are so vastly different that it is now necessary to rethink the scale and form of our largest cities.

It started with the Melbourne 2030 plan, which was released in October 2002, followed by Perth's Network City in September 2004, the South East Queensland Regional Plan in June 2005, Sydney's City of Cities in December 2005 and the final version of the Planning Strategy for Adelaide in December last year.

Here are five metropolitan plans that make provision for the net addition of 2.9 million residents over 25 years to 2031. The problem is that the new ABS projections place net growth in these cities over this period at 5 million.

Now a few hundred thousand spread over five cities could possibly be accommodated by rejigging existing plans, but not an extra 2.1 million. This number forces a rethink on a grand scale.

For example, Melbourne 2030 is designed to contain the city's expansion via an urban growth boundary (or UGB). This boundary was set when it was thought that Melbourne might add 831,000 residents between 2006 and 2031.

But now the ABS has weighed in with a very different outlook: it says Melbourne will add 1.611 million over this time frame. The difference is 780,000 people or around 500,000 households.

The strategic response options are to either maintain the UGB and force residents into high-rise apartments in areas outside the childless and uber-groovy inner city, or to expand the city along transportation corridors in a controlled manner.

This would mean ensuring that each corridor contained sufficient jobs and retail, health and education services to minimise commuting to other parts of the city.

The new plan for Melbourne would resemble a flower with each corridor forming a petal. The idea is that the city can expand along a transportation corridor (road and rail) as long as that corridor is self-contained with regard to urban services.

The only reason to travel out of the corridor would be to visit the high-order functionality of the city centre -- for example, the MCG or specialist medical services.

The same logic applies to Sydney. City of Cities was built on the basis that 980,000 residents were to be added to the city between 2006 and 2031. But now this outlook has been upped by the ABS to 1.427 million.

How does Sydney cope with an extra half-a-million residents over and above the number that was initially planned for? Can Kellyville and Rouse Hill really accommodate the "storm surge" generated by new projections? And if not, then where are these extra bodies going to fit?

And then there's the issue of what infrastructure is required to facilitate new growth areas?

There's also the issue of how an apparently "broke" state Government will fund this infrastructure.

There's a great political response to this dilemma. It's called the "getting of religion".

Politicians get the religion of conservation the minute they understand the task of allocating funds for urban infrastructure.

Far better to put your hand on your heart and swear that you believe the city is big enough and that no further growth is required. This closes down the city and the heat generated by the demand for infrastructure simply melts away.

Conservation is such a beautiful concept on so many levels. But there's a problem. The states can embrace conservation all they like, but if the federal Government continues to pump immigration levels to 180,000 per year, then where does all this humanity flow?

It flows and jams and crams into cities, pushing up rents. This, too, is a beautiful thing. High rents can be managed by planners by mandating that developers include affordable housing into their estates.

Here is a neat shuffle of responsibility: the state's obligation to provide infrastructure has now morphed into the development industry's obligation to deliver affordable accommodation.

And on it rolls. Perth's Network City was developed on the understanding that this city would add 546,000 residents between 2006 and 2031, whereas in Brisbane the Regional Plan was to accommodate 476,000 over the same time frame.

But in both cases the new projections up the ante. Perth must now cope with 937,000 extra residents and Brisbane 861,000 in total. That's about 800,000 extra residents across both cities over and above the provision in existing plans.

Oddly enough, it's Adelaide that has come through this process with its strategic plan more or less intact. But that's only because this plan was sufficiently flexible to accommodate an upside forecast based on the aspirational political objective of "Two Million by 2050".

Adelaide is on track to reach this target and it doesn't have to toss out its metropolitan plan to get there.

The issue for the development community is how this will play out. The official response from state planners will be that they don't rely on ABS projections; they rely on state projections. And where are these state projections?

They are all being recalibrated right now to accommodate the new census data. No state releases its projections before the ABS releases its. So, even though the official response is that the ABS projections carry no weight, the fact is that they do set the tone.

I think developers with land on the edge of each of our five largest cities should be right now fronting state planners and demanding to know how the strategic plan will accommodate heightened growth rates.

Now is the time for the development community and planners to combine forces and develop a long-term and strategic vision for each city based on a 2050 perspective.

Such a plan should accommodate a variety of housing styles, including low density, and a checklist and timescale of infrastructure required.

It would even be appropriate for state governments to start looking at new ways of funding and delivering infrastructure that does not impinge on their other "most worthy" uses for our state taxes.

It's time to drop the pretence that the current strategic plans will manage our cities in the first half of the 21st century and develop bold new models for housing, infrastructure and funding.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner
Click to expand...
 
Govt tried the satellite town with Melton and sunbury. Melton is (sorry) still a dive, Sunbury took 25 years to take off, and they are only 1hr from Melb. Sunbury has the train, I don't think Melton does.
 
Yeah, Celica - Melton does have the train (at Melton South).

We owned a house there (in Melton Central) many moons ago and revisited recently - the only thing that has changed is that the trees and lawn in the front yard have been bulldozed and replaced with gravel - and there are heavy roller-shutters on all the windows. :eek:

Cheers
LynnH
 
MichaelWhyte said:
Hi Shadow,

You bet I am! :D

If you look at the map on that link of the area under review as part of the redevelopment master plan, then the end of my PPOR street is actually within the red circle. Its just a couple of hundred metres from my house to the commercial area being redeveloped. My wife attended the community meetings and most residents were looking for a piaza style cafe and restaurant strip with access across Pittwater Rd to the lake and more beautification of the lakeside areas.

It will definitely lift the North Narrabeen area, which remains the sleeper suburb of the Northern Beaches IMHO. We're sitting tight on our big 1600m2 rainforest block with lake views and an expansive 4 bedroom house. I think she'll do alright by us in the years to come... ;)

Cheers,
Michael
Click to expand...


Hi Michael,

That is looking great for Nth Narra. Well done buying in Mona Vale as well. That is where i live and it is getting better all the time. A bit busy; however so much variety of shops, café's etc that there is little need to drive elsewhere. A cosmopolitan little town!
 
depreciator said:
This is the problem. Lots of people say: 'I would move out of the city, provided I can back there very quickly.' Regional centres need to develop to a point where people more or less forget about the city.
Schools are a big problem. I know a family that has moved to Cootamundra (from Sydney) so their kids can have a farm experience in their early years, but they are intending to move back to Sydney before the kids hit high school.
Click to expand...

We have done a similar thing in country vic. Rented out the Melb home, bought a house in the country, will raise the kids here and return to larger city for sec schooling. B/c we have very little personal debt we can afford to put money into IPs and a nice lifestyle. We stay in Melb and travel away for holidays on a regular basis. We appreciate a Lygon St coffee much more now that it is not so easily on offer.:) I am now too used to getting a park right out the front of where I want to go ... the relatively scarce traffic will be hard to (eventually) leave behind.
 
Maverik said:
Well done buying in Mona Vale as well. That is where i live and it is getting better all the time. A bit busy; however so much variety of shops, café's etc that there is little need to drive elsewhere. A cosmopolitan little town!
Click to expand...
Hi Maverik,

Agree completely. We drove through there again on the weekend as your just 5 minutes up the road, and couldn't believe how quickly all that top end commercial development is coming online. Once the stuff on Pittwater Rd gets completed it will really change the face of Mona Vale. We're still planning on tendering and commencing our MUH build mid next year. Should be online early 2010.

Here's another article I read today which is on topic for this thread:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...ing-rental-rage/2008/09/24/1222193832330.html

SMH said:
First there was road rage, now its rental rage.

Real estate agents managing Sydney's rental market are copping abuse and threats from prospective tenants due to the squeeze on property vacancies.

Sydney rental vacancies in August remained at 1.2 per cent - unchanged from the previous month, the Real Estate Institute of NSW reports.

With no improvement to the number of properties available in the city, institute president Steve Martin said people unable to find accommodation were venting their frustration on agents.
Click to expand...
So we've got planned population explosion at the same time as there is a massive under-supply of property in Sydney for the existing population. It doesn't take an economics grad to spell out the demand/supply implications of that scenario.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Just heard on the news there are "760 properties for rent in Sydney."

Wow! I'm not sure if that is greater Sydney, meaning Western SUburbs, or just Inner Sydney. Surely just Inner SYdney?:eek:


Regards JO
 
Shadow said:
More on this topic from Bernard Salt...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24326606-25658,00.html



......."Well, Rann would be very pleased with the new projections released last week, which show Australia's population increasing from 20.6 million in 2006 to 34.2 million by 2051, reflecting net growth of 13.5 million".......
Click to expand...



This does annoy me somewhat.

Why do Australians want a population of 34 million in 2051? And most of the immigrants moving into Sydney and Melbourne?

Well that would be fine if these two cities were the manufacturing powerhouses they once were, but as we now rely mainly on digging stuff out of the ground for our exports and in order to pay for our lifestyles, and I can't see any mass exodous back into manufacturing, [I wouldn't work in a factory either] it means that in order to maintain our current standard of living, we will need to dig out almost twice as much coal, twice as much iron ore, twice as much gas.

We will need more dams to catch water, especially as city people have an aversion to rain water tanks and covered pools. We will have to clear more land for all the new housing estates and highways. More people will need more food. So farmers have to increase production even more, which needs more nasty fertilizer and chemicals. Less food will be able to be exported, so our export income will be reduced from agriculture.

We will need more power stations to supply more power. And to run the desalination plants to supply water as everyone likes seeing a quarter of a million litres of water run down the gutter of their roofs every year instead of catching it.



***...BUT...***

Greenies and environmentalists are city based. They don't want more dams, or more power stations, especially not nuclear powered ones, or even wind turbines [too noisey, too unsightly, and kills the odd bird :):)]. They don't want more mines, or more farms, or more cleared land, and as more people move into the cities, there are more and more city based greenies.

Then the finger pointing starts. Whos responsible for all this cleared land and more farms. Why are you farmers using this nasty fertilizer? Why do we want to build a new dam? [when it's perfectly clear why] Why are we digging up so much land for mines? Why is the amount of wilderness decreasing? Why are the rivers running less?

What annoys me the most is when the people asking these questions are also profiting from increasing population.




Australias population without immigration would be just about stable. There are enough people having 3 or more kids to make up for childless couples and those who don't want kids.

Either the environment will suffer from an Australian population of 34 million, or our standard of living will fall. And it's rural areas that will get the blame if the environment suffers.

Just remember that, all you lot in the Somersoft cheer squad, cheering on our immigration policies.

I'm just tired of reading about environmental degradation in city news, and then getting the "must increase our population at all cost" story straight after.

It's one or the other.

See ya's.
 
Last edited:
boomer, check Sudan's rainfall and soil fertility, which are higher than most of Australia.

And look at what happened when they tried to increase their population.
 
boomtown said:
How much of our northern rainfall belt is farmed? And cant we just kick all the graziers out and grow wheat? :p
Click to expand...

There's little doubt you could easily put another 5 million people up the top end......but with a third world std of living......soon enough, we'd be reduced to a bunch of feuding nation states fighting over natural resources...just like Russia.

Developed nation std of living isn't based on more people. It is based on intellectual property and outsourcing labor to underdeveloped nations with cheaper labour.

Why create an underdeveloped nation state within our own borders?
 
Raising our population to 34 million would give Australia the same population as Canada but a slightly smaller land mass (but a third of Canada's land mass is covered in sheet ice).

Its really no big deal.
 
boomtown said:
How much of our northern rainfall belt is farmed? And cant we just kick all the graziers out and grow wheat? :p
Click to expand...


Boomer, the wet/dry season tropics will never be a big provider of food. The soil is crap. This comes from being flooded for 4 months of the year. The ord river scheme only works because the dam and lake Argyle allows irrigation over the dry season. Nothing much of food value grows in the wet. Too many bugs, too humid, too water logged.

Could work a bit if more dams are built, and more land cleared :eek::D
Get my point? :confused: Because I think you have missed it so far. :)


See ya's.
 
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