Affluent suburbs on YIMBY hit list in development tussle
A leading campaigner for the so-called YIMBY (Yes, In My Backyard) movement says it has affluent inner-city suburbs at the top of its pro-housing agenda for Australia.
RICH suburbs are in the firing line of pro-housing campaigners as the battle over solutions to the nation’s housing crisis heats up in Australia’s major cities.
Jonathan O’Brien, lead organiser of YIMBY Melbourne, called for construction in Australia’s second largest city needed to be brought forward “in places where it’s going to be most viable to build, places where housing is most expensive”.
“Where you’re going to be able to build and build profitably is going to be in rich areas. You’re looking at areas like Brighton, like Kew,” O’Brien said.
“These areas that are highly in demand and also highly restrictive in their planning processes and practices.”
The comments come as the NSW and Victorian state governments work to simplify planning rules in the face of opposition from local councils, community groups and vested interests, including those under the banner of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) movement.
In NSW, Premier Chris Minns has promised another tranche of planning reforms to help fix housing problems particularly in Sydney – the nation’s most expensive property market.
Victoria’s government, meanwhile, has set what it says is a “bold target” to build 800,000 homes in the state over the next decade.
Federally, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has said that planning laws are prioritising interests of anti-development residents over those potentially priced out of the market, as the Labor government races to build 1.2 million homes by 2030.
O’Brien said Sydney and Melbourne were two of the fastest growing cities in the world but “the federal government I don’t think has paid enough attention to that for decades”.
“We want to see the current Labor administration step up a little bit more,” he said.
“Clare O’Neil and co have done a great job of backing in the NSW and Victorian governments reforms, especially over the past few months, but we want to see the federal government think about using things like the National Competition Policy to actually make our cities more competitive.”
He said YIMBY Melbourne wanted the government “ to really push the states to do even more and learn from the best of each other – and not to backslide”.
