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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

It’s true that these details are somewhat complex, but I don’t think that should be an excuse for them not being discussed. Australian newspapers are often filled with the minutiae of tax policy changes - these housing policy deserve the same level of interest and scrutiny. 6/

Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

Broadly, a 2.2:1 FSR means that a 6 storey building will cover less than half of the lot. This means most buildings in these areas can’t reach 6 storeys, unless they can find other ways to get permission for more floor space, such as via the infill affordable housing bonus. 5/

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

In areas zoned for medium and high density, the amount of new housing that the policy allows was reduced from the original December 2023 draft, with inner areas now having a floor space ratio (FSR) control of 2.2:1 (see photo on left) rather than 3:1 (right). 4/

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

Most city land is zoned for low density, so this significantly limits the policy’s reach. For example, on the left are the low and mid rise areas near Manly Vale. The map on the right shows that most of this is zoned R1 (purple) or R2 (pink), and so is limited to 2 storeys. 3/

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

But with planning rules, it’s never quite this simple. In fact, the policy only allows for 4-6 storey apartments in areas already zoned for medium or high-rise development. ‘Low density’ R2 or ‘General residential’ R1 zoned lots only allow for 2 storeys. 2/

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

The above Guardian article describes the policy as allowing, “a tiered effect around stations and town centres with mid-rises within the first 400 metres of a hub, giving way to low rises such as townhouses up to 800 metres from hubs.” 1/

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 24

It’s notable to me that recent media reports on the low and mid rise housing policy in NSW struggle to explain the details of how it works, and miss the fact that it was scaled back from the policy originally proposed. A short 🧵

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 15

This does not mean there are not still bad housing policy ideas out there that should be challenged. But getting better housing policy is not as simple as overturning a particular ‘dominant view’ - if anything, it’s more about educating and compromising.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 15

The result is that there are numerous siloed policymakers and industry stakeholders across various levels of government, who have different incentives, different professions, and different views on how to fix the area of housing policy they think matters most.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 15

It’s also true that viewpoints that on the surface sound similar - e.g. ‘we should speed up housing approvals’ and ‘we should upzone to allow more homes’ - are actually premised upon mostly incompatible understandings of the policy problem.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 15

For instance, it’s both true that planning rules in Australia have often been made without properly thinking through how these policies impact housing markets, and also true that ‘planning doesn’t matter for housing outcomes’ is mostly a fringe view among policymakers.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 15

A common meme in housing policy is that such and such a view (e.g. supply scepticism or neoliberalism) is dominant among policymakers. I’ve increasingly come to think that this is just wrong: there’s remarkably little agreement on what our housing problems actually are.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 12

My point is if you have ~1500 people per train, then at 3-4 trains per minute for each of two tracks (which is very achievable), then you’re carrying around 50k per hour in both directions. But yes this is very much a large train not just a tram on a road.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 11

I think the graphic isn’t quite matched to the text - isn’t 9m wide enough for 2x tracks? If so, then that’s maybe one full large train (~1500 people) every 2-3 mins each way.

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 8

It includes this great paper on vacancies caused by new housing supply Finland. While those moving into new market rate housing are mostly higher income, their movement creates a chain of vacancies that quickly flows to lower income households.

www.sciencedirect.co...

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Matthew Bowes @mbowes.bsky.social · Aug 8

A great project here by Michael Weibe, who is writing accessible literature reviews on topics in housing research. The first article is all about vacancy chains.
open.substack.com/pu...