Labor targets industrial land and unveils Pattern Book for housing
Construction continues to be at the centre of Labor’s election promises, the party today unveiling new policy to develop a plan for employment land in Adelaide’s north and a pattern book to fast-track housing construction.
Labor will address what property industry lobbyists have declared a “policy disaster in waiting”, today announcing the party will develop a plan to ensure the state has serviced industrial and employment land if re-elected.
And another piece of housing policy was announced this morning, with Labor committing to creating a ‘Housing Pattern Book’ – a suite of pre-approved architectural designs to fast-track planning approvals and build new homes faster.
Labor said its ‘Employment Lands Roadmap’ will outline where land will be released, when infrastructure will be delivered and how the state will meet growing demand for industrial, logistics and advanced manufacturing precincts.
The party would also update and expand the Land Supply Dashboard to track employment land availability in real time, in a bid to give developers “the transparency they need to plan with confidence”.
A strategic review of employment land across Adelaide also would be undertaken by the Coordinator-General, Labor said.
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Last year, powerful industry body Property Council of Australia SA said that without “immediate intervention” Adelaide would run out of serviced industrial land within 18 to 24 months.
Group members feared that unless the state government “urgently” invested in immediately expanding stormwater networks, it would be Labor’s “next public policy disaster in waiting”.
The influential lobby group called on the government to prepare an industrial roadmap to support the release of serviced industrial land in its recently released ‘Prosperity Roadmap’; a wish list of preferred policy positions.
This wish has now been addressed by Labor, which said it had already progressed more than 5000 hectares of employment land across the state, including at Greater Edinburgh Parks, Dublin, Waterloo Corner, Concordia, Roseworthy and Murray Bridge.
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Housing Minister Nick Champion said the roadmap “will give businesses and investors the certainty they need to commit to South Australia for the long term”.
Pattern Book plan proposed
Labor also today announced it would deliver a Housing Pattern Book – pre-approved architectural designs for homes – in a bid to build houses faster.
The party said compliant low to mid-rise developments would receive “near-instant planning approval”. A similar approach has already been adopted in New South Wales, the party said.
“We need to find ways to be more efficient and to create the policy settings to allow the homes we need to be built fast,” Premier Peter Malinauskas said.
But Urban Development Institute of Australia SA chief executive Liam Golding said “the devil’s going to be in the detail”, with no designs yet to be released.
“The announcement is sort of a headline as opposed to the actual pattern book, so we can’t really assess how useful it is,” Golding said.
“The Urban Development Institute always wants to see flexibility maintained in the system so that private industry can respond to market demands.
“We know that the people who are building houses every day have a great understanding of what looks good, what is responded to by the market, and ultimately what can be delivered quickly.”
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