Calls for higher density housing as Melbourne grows
Like the rest of Australia Victoria is going to need a lot of new homes in the future with projections an extra 4-million people will call the state home in 30 years. The state's infrastructure body is calling on the government to do more to build homes in established suburbs rather than on the ever-expanding urban fringes.
Transcript
00:00 Chelsea Tunnycliffe reckons her 7th floor apartment in the suburbs is the best of both
00:07 worlds.
00:08 Come on, let's go.
00:10 It is more city than up in the hills where I'm from, but a good balance of city but not
00:18 too country.
00:19 Locals say they love the community and the close proximity to shops, transport and work.
00:25 There's a real opportunity for Victoria's cities to be better connected and more compact.
00:34 Infrastructure Victoria compared five scenarios for housing in Melbourne's future, from a
00:39 compact city with more apartments and townhouses to a sprawling one with more homes on Melbourne's
00:45 urban fringes.
00:46 It found a sprawling city would need an extra 30,000 hectares of land, about as much as
00:53 12,000 MCGs by 2056.
00:57 Victorians in compact cities would be $43 billion better off by 2056 through increased
01:04 productivity and higher house prices.
01:09 In Melbourne's south east, Monash Council wants some more homes in Huntingdale.
01:14 If we were to increase the number of dwellings available to people, we cut down on the need
01:19 to travel across the city, we cut down on carbon emissions and we make the local area
01:24 a nicer neighbourhood for people to live in.
01:26 The demand is certainly there.
01:28 We need more supply for the housing, then it will be perfect.
01:34 The state government knows Victoria needs more homes and last month it released its
01:39 strategy to get an extra 800,000 homes into Victoria over the next 10 years.
01:45 And that includes planning changes to get more homes into suburbs like this one.
01:49 But Infrastructure Victoria wants the government to go further.
01:53 80,000 net gain in homes every year, 800,000 over 10 years is a huge effort.
02:01 The report is also calling for the introduction of urban growth boundaries around regional
02:06 cities including Geelong and Ballarat.
02:08 and Ballarat.
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