NSW Govt announce new pattern book plans for housing 09:51

An international design competition has been launched today that will shape how our city is going to look in the future. The government's developing a pattern book design system for new developments. So what is pattern book? Well, you might call them standardised designs, off-the-shelf designs for buildings that could be approved quickly. And the whole idea is that developers can then get on with their plans quickly.

That would address the housing shortage. I do have some concerns with this system and hopefully the Planning Minister, Paul Scully, can put my mind at ease. Mr Scully joins us. Good afternoon, Minister. G'day, Clinton. Thanks for having me on the program. Pattern book designs. What is a pattern book?

Well, a pattern book's not a new thing. In fact, the first pattern book that we're aware of in New South Wales was actually in Mrs Macquarie's library. And it's basically a book of patterns of designs that are easily replicable and buildable.

that are aimed at delivering more homes. There's been a huge number of them through time in New South Wales. They've worked in the past. They've come up with some of the buildings that Sydney are synonymous with, and we're looking at replicating that for mid-rise buildings. So what sort of buildings would they apply to? Are these the buildings that are going to be around train stations?

Oh, so this could apply anywhere. What we're looking at is the terrace homes and mid-rise, so the sort of the three-storey apartment, mid-rise apartment buildings. And in the past, these have been often used for single dwellings, and you can see them right the way through. In fact, the New South Wales government architect went through the history of it today, and some of them were on display and on sale at the

fifth floor of David Jones in Sydney for a while. So this is not a new thing, but we're applying this to terrace housing where it's been applied before, but also to mid-rise apartments.

This is what concerns me a little, Paul. Are we going to end up with a city that has the same looking buildings, building after building looks the same? And then that might be okay now because the architecture designs that we sign off on now through this competition may be wonderful. But as you know, fashion goes in and out. What happens if we have all these buildings that look the same and then in 10 years time, we deem that to be a fairly ugly fashion?

Well, let's just say we've got about 3.8 million dwellings across Sydney. Even if you were to put 100,000 in there, this is not going to be a huge rows and rows of patterns of identical streets. But cities evolve and change through time as well. But some of the earliest pattern books, the buildings still exist or there's been variations of them. So, for instance, some of your terrace houses in and around Surrey Hills and Panties and other parts

are based on designs that came out of the original patent books, but were adjusted to Sydney conditions as they evolved through time. And we've got to remember too, this isn't just a Sydney design competition, this is a New South Wales wide design competition. So I think the risk here is,

of having streets lined with exactly the same thing is pretty small, but the prospect of these being part and parcel of our housing future and getting more people into more homes more quickly is a real prospect. So can you give us a guarantee on this one, Minister, that we're not going to end up like some sort of eastern block country where you've got these high-rise towers that look like a piece of the concrete jungle?

No, well, this is actually dealing with the missing middle, what's referred to as the missing middle. So over the last sort of century, we've actually got less diverse housing types now than what we did 100 years ago. So at the moment, you'll see that there tends to be either really tall towers or single dwellings.

And that's why we're looking at the terraces and the mid-rise apartment buildings so that we can get that bit of housing diversity in because diverse housing gives options, it gives choice, it gives people an opportunity through all stages of their lives to stay in neighbourhoods and suburbs that they've grown to love or they've contributed to. Yesterday, the government also, when you were part of this announcement, identifying I think it's more than 40 sites across Sydney in the state. That's correct. That are going to be used for public areas.

housing, how many houses actually directly are you going to be building there?

- Well, this is part of the government, the budget announcement that we had around 30,000 homes that will be on the surplus public land, not all of it public housing, but there will be a proportion that is social and affordable housing. Some of it will be market housing. But what we did was we sat down and did the hard work of going through and looking where there might be surplus government land that's not needed by say the transport department or schools or some other government agency

and could it be better used for housing? Yes, well, let's put that on the list for a pipeline of land that comes through, particularly focused on infill areas rather than greenfield alone, that we can continue the rollout of housing. So this is part of looking at every aspect of the housing supply chain

to make sure that we're doing all that we can as a government to get more people into homes more quickly. So as part of that National Housing Accord, there's a goal of 75,000 new homes per year. Of that 75,000, how many does the government actually end up building?

Well, it will vary depending on the site. But we've got Lancombe who is doing some work with built-to-rent pilots and key worker housing and built-to-rent areas, as well as the homes that they are able to get onto the market. We've committed to 8,200 in the budget, 8,200 homes.

new social homes over the next four years. We've committed to also repairing and getting back to the market a whole bunch of social homes as well. We've got some changes in planning law changes that have freed up and rezoned a whole heap of areas around train stations with some more areas to come. We've made dual occupancies and semi-detached dwellings

permissible in 124 local government areas across the state. We've got affordable housing bonus schemes. We're looking at a government guarantee around financing so that we can get construction underway more quickly. We're doing an extraordinary amount as a government to make sure that we can say that we're pulling every possible lever to get homes out of the ground. Paul, I've got a couple of messages that just come in on text line from our listeners, if I can ask them.

This one from Mark, and he says, he says, it's a great idea to standardise building choices, but local councils still override the state government with their own rules. He says it's taken 14 months for a DA for a standard build. Does the minister really know why there's that administration blockage there? Look.

Look, I can absolutely understand the frustration of a 14-month on a standard build. And that's why the patent book with the designs that come with the patent book comes a faster approval pathway. So you get an accelerated approval pathway that allows those builders to get them building faster, to get more homes out of the ground more quickly. That's the advantage of the patent book design. That works hand in glove with one another.

This one from Paul as well. Why is waste management not deemed an essential service with the Department of Planning when they're looking at high-density areas?

Look, we're looking at ways of improving things and waste management is an important part of it. And we do have some challenges with waste management in the future in New South Wales. It's an unavoidable part of your day-to-day existence is you end up with whether it's food scraps or whether it's packaging waste. And Minister Sharpe, through the Environment Portfolio, is doing a lot of work on how we can improve that. There's work going on at the State,

federal level and through all of the old council of Australian governments, essentially the ministerial working groups to look at ways we can improve that and councils are on board with that as well because we know that we have to address that to reduce our waste because we're running out of, or we'll run out of more quickly if we don't

suitable landfill sites. It was my concern that the patent books would mean that we end up with a lot of houses or buildings that look the same. But Anthony on our text line minister is making the point, I don't care what it looks like as long as we have cheaper places to live. Look, that's the bottom line, isn't it? We have the most expensive city in the country and it's one of the most expensive in the world.

Yeah, well, recently we got a demographer survey, demographic survey, sorry. Once again, for the 15th year of 16, ranked us in the top three of the least affordable cities on the planet. Now, that's not a ranking anyone in Sydney wants. It's not a ranking anyone in Sydney can tolerate. It's why we're losing so many young people. That's why this patent book is aimed at not only getting well-designed homes, but also modest prices.

simple, affordable and attractive homes. And that's why we've opened this up to architects nationally, architects and students domestically as well as internationally to get some of the best minds working on this. And I think we're going to see some really exciting designs coming out of this process and it'll really add to Sydney like it's done in the past. These are the sorts of things where a good architect will be able to put a stamp on the face of Sydney. I hope we get it right because we don't want to have ugliness in the future. Thank you, Paul.

Thanks very much, Clinton. Appreciate your time.

even if they end up being cheap. We don't want to create the slums of the 2040s.