No government ever asked the people of Melbourne if they wanted their city to become a high rise metropolis. No plan set such a goal. Governments decided for us.
Halfway through its term, Victorian Labor has joined the big-city development camp. Labor's strategy is to side with vested interests while pretending to listen to rising resident concerns about rampant development. But packed public meetings across the metropolitan area are demanding greater development regulation, pitting residents against big capital, unions and compliant government.
One explanation for Labor's approach is its addiction to land-related tax revenue – currently at about $7.6 billion annually – and its desperation to maintain the construction industry share of 7 per cent of state production. The construction industry wields enormous influence through its multi-layered development, business and service elements. Peak development groups lobby effectively. Unions are a powerful lobby group with Labor.
One example of the government's approach is the recent rules for high rise residential towers in the central city. These are cosmetic, designed to appease the development industry under the fiction of government control. Extensive development will continue under one of the developed world's highest site densities with a plot ratio of 18:1. Developers gain bonuses to build even higher for providing ill-defined public benefits. Many cities require measurable public benefits as part of the approval process, not as an incentive to an already generous rule.
Planning Minister Richard Wynne recently demonstrated the grotesque results from this approach, approving a tower which grew to a plot ratio of 29:1 and 70 storeys. The public benefit seemed to be mainly the minister's appreciation for the tower design. Wynne ignored an independent review panel's recommendation to abandon the bonus scheme. His failure to provide reasons shows contempt for the panel and the public.
There is no lack of infill land and other development sites. In the central city, apartment supply equals projected residential demand until 2031. By early 2016, about 100 high rise apartment buildings were under construction, planned or had gained recent permits, potentially doubling the number of high rise buildings in the central city. Some densities are over four times those of Hong Kong and Tokyo.
The 60 towers approved but yet to start, and those planned, are a time bomb. With almost half the pre-1985 central city demolished, the destruction of one of the world's grand Victorian-era cities is only a matter of time. High rise residential buildings were rare in Melbourne before 2002 but now the unthinkable is the norm and those who question them are damned as heretical or NIMBYS.
High rise advocates, for example, recently condemned Yarra council and residents for advocating height controls and objecting to a 16-storey tower in North Fitzroy. The issue was not development but its scale. The tower would be opposite low rise houses, and a five-storey building had already been approved on the land. This is a familiar tale. A lack of mandatory height controls bids up land price and leads to speculative high rise investment, constantly pushing the boundaries of acceptable building height.
Substantial increases in urban density do not require high rise buildings. Many of the world's densest cities are located in Europe and the Middle East with uniform building heights between 3-7 stories. New Melbourne six-story apartment blocks are achieving dwelling densities almost 20 times those of traditional inner suburbs.
A uniform density of six stories at Fishermans Bend could achieve the same dwelling numbers as Labor's high rise model, with significant social benefits. Even Chinese authorities are turning from residential high rise, recognising its health and liveability problems.
High rise is spreading across the metropolitan area. Investors are buying up Melbourne's traditional strip shopping centres, attracted by the lack of height controls. The heritage and amenity of strip centres are a vital part of Melbourne's identity and are some of our greatest economic assets.
Their demolition would add little to Melbourne's overall land supply. Why would any government collude in such destruction, contrary to the public interest, when other housing alternatives are so widely available? Much of Melbourne's stock of high rise residential towers is low quality, narrowly targeted to a transient demographic and investor owned. It does little for Melbourne's real housing needs and is likely to become unliveable and be demolished within a generation, a shocking legacy to short sightedness.
While Labor encourages small high rise apartments in the inner city, it continues its love affair with vast new outer-urban, poorly serviced estates at a time of historically low first home buyer levels, and spurns regional development as an alternative to urban concentration.
Perhaps when state politicians enjoy their next European sojourn, they might ask how city leaders there achieve both urban density and high amenity. Whoever listens might just win the next Victorian election.
Michael Buxton is Professor Environment and Planning, RMIT University.
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