The Territory Plan, which became law late last year, has changed the fabric of residential land tenure in the ACT: the market, development opportunities and residential amenity.
Initially, the plan was greeted with silent acclaim by developers and ostrich-like apathy by all but a few residents.
Before the plan, land uses were fairly rigid. People in single-dwelling areas could, by and large, expect the housing profile of their suburb to stay the same. People were more worried about vacant land being built upon than by existing houses being demolished for units.
The Territory Plan changes that. It allows existing single-dwelling blocks to become two-storey multiple-dwelling blocks and for the title to be divided. Everywhere in the ACT. The only limit was to meet footprint criteria, including set-back and plot ratios.
From a town-planning an architectural viewpoint, it is emerging that the plan has a fundamental flaw largely created out of a desire to ensure certainty for developers and those residents who wanted extensions or dual occupancy and to create administrative ease.
The flaw is that the same “”building footprint” and plot ratio rules and the same multi-occupancy rules were to apply virtually across the whole of the city.
Architects point out it is just plain dumb to have identical set-back rules for every block. Protection of a northern boundary is more important than a southern one. The highside boundary is more important than the low side. Plot ratio needs to be lower in some areas than others.
Having the same multi-dwelling rules city-wide, means developers choose what gets redeveloped on individual cost and market grounds alone, not on overall city amenity and efficiency. And, in theory, they can redevelop a whole precinct, neighbourhood or suburb, defeating the concept of mixed, dotted development in harmony with existing residents. There are no percentage limits to the total number of multi-occupancies. This is why residents fear “”Kingstonisation” and being forced out, as Kingston residents were.
The plan has caused widespread concern, even among some of the more prescient developers.
It attempted to give certainty. If your building fits the footprint, then build. But the trade-off has been the exercise of discretion, judgment, flexibility and a sense of proportion. Indeed, a rigid plan might appeal to an under-resourced (numerically and intellectually) planning department, precisely because it does not have to exercise judgement and discretion with respect to every application. It is fits the rules, pass it.
Some residents are worried about what they see as the domino effect on their whole suburb and the loss amenity of their individual residences.
This argument has been put by strongly by the Old Red Hill Preservation Society and by residents’ groups in Yarralumla and North Canberra.
They are also concerned about rises in rates and reductions in property values. That might sound like a contradiction but it is not.
Let’s take and example. A beautifully extended double-brick 5-bedroom house in Yarralumla worth (pre-Territory Plan) $350,000. Next door is a well-kept small fibro house worth $95,000. Both have unimproved capital values of $85,000, upon which the rates are based.
Come the in-fill program a developer seeks to put two or three new units on the fibro site and a lot of nearby sites look good for redevelopment _ close to shops, classy address etc. As a result the unimproved value (and the rates) goes up to $150,000 of all the blocks, including the beautiful brick house.
But people seeking spacious Yarralumla living see the brick house next to units as less desirable now. Its market price falls to $300,000.
That is how you can get falling market prices and at the same time increasing rates.
These, residents, say, however, that the do not mind in-fill provided it is well-done and provided that it does not take over whole neighbourhoods or precincts.
Other older residents, however, see in-fill as a chance to continue living in an area without the hassle of a big garden and with a body corporate to look after everything. The Scott Brothers who are proposing developments on sites in Red Hill say they have pre-sold nearly all their units to residents in the area.
A developer with a stake in the inner north (and elsewhere) Ron Bell has some concerns about the long-term affects of the plan.
He agrees with existing residents that redevelopment must be of high quality and agrees that there must be a mix of types of dwellings throughout a suburb. However, he said, the Territory Plan had no strategy that would ensure that.
He was concerned also that some agents might talk up prices for redevelopable blocks. That in turn would put pressure on the quality of the medium density that could be built on the sites.
A review of the Territory Plan is being conducted by the Legislative Assembly’s Planning Development and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Wayne Berry.
However, Independent Michael Moore has called for a moratorium on in-fill pending an independent inquiry. The Liberal Party has supported that. So to has the Save Our Cities Coalition which is chaired by the Conservation Council.
The council’s president, Jacqui Rees, says the Territory Plan has been a developers carte blanche at the expense of existing residents.
“”The plan should have taken account of major heritage, conservation and scientific concerns in the first place, but it did not,” she said. “”All the major planning issues had to be raised by community groups after the event: Mount Stromolo, Tuggeranong Homestead, Old Red Hill and so on. Responsive politicians and bureaucrats should have foreseen these things; that’s what planning is about.”
She said present rules were allowing the creation of slums, which was neither environmentally nor socially desirable nor economically sound.
An example of slum creation was given by a Braddon resident who is objecting to the placing of 10 units on what was previously a single-house block of 1375 square metres. The resident says he does not mind good in-fill, but putting people into a 53.3 square-metre unit is irresponsible.
The chief executive of the Housing Industry Association of the ACT, Larry King, rejects the rates argument. He says that without in-fill the spread of the city would push up infrastructure costs which would result in everyone’s rates going up. There was a continuing demand for units close to the centre, he said.
On in-fill, he said, “”People do not like change, but with present population growth it is necessary.
“”Just because some in-fill projects have gone bad, it does not mean we have to accept defeat. We have to improve to meet most people’s objectives.”
His industry, which provided work for 5000 people in the ACT, was obeying the present law and contributing to the Government’s in-fill policy.
“”That policy was made by the elected representatives of the majority,” he said. “”The majority view is not coming through, though.”
Builders, too, were suffering financially from too much rigidity in planning and too many delays.
He called for more flexibility, especially at the building-inspection stage. Sometimes, building requirements, like reducing brick cutting, meant that some footprint or window-overlooking requirements might not be fulfilled to the letter.
On the quality of in-fill, he said builders preferred quality buildings with interesting articulated frontages because they made more money from them.
Ms Rees said, however, that the character of the city was being changed in a way that was driven by greed, not need. In-fill was being done wherever developers thought they could make money by stackingin as many units as they could get away with.