Credit: The Age
ASHLEY Cox and his wife Paola Codoceo loved the inner-urban vibe of West Brunswick where they were renting. For three years, they searched to fulfil their dream of permanent home ownership in the area - only to be continually frustrated by spiralling prices. Knock-down houses for more than half a million dollars were common.
Last month, Ashley, Paola and baby William finally moved into their three-bedroom, three-bathroom house with swimming pool on a large block - in Werribee.
''We really liked living in West Brunswick,'' says Cox. ''It is a great area to live in, nice and close. But I don't want to be working 60 hours a week with my wife working 60 hours a week in order to service a $700,000 mortgage.''
Their story is a common one - thousands of first home buyers are being priced out of Melbourne's first 25 kilometres, at a time when the city is facing one of its greatest planning challenges: a population explosion. If the predictions are right, Melbourne's population will almost double in the next 40 years to 7 million.
The fundamental question is how the city will cope: how do we accommodate a booming population in an affordable, sustainable manner with access to services, while retaining a sense of community? As Premier John Brumby puts it, the challenge is to ensure Melbourne remains one of the most liveable cities in the world.
Planning experts and politicians agree: it will be impossible to double the physical size of Melbourne to match - Melbourne is already the eighth largest city in the the world in geographical size, stretching about 100 kilometres from east to west.
We have to do more with what we have. We have to look inwards, not outwards - in the short term, that option was removed with the defeat in State Parliament last month of the planned 43,000-hectare expansion of Melbourne's urban growth boundary.
Despite all the arguments over affordability and land supply, forever outward expansion is not a necessity. London has barely touched its urban perimeter for decades but has grown in population with better use of old industrial and commercial land.
Planning experts say that better use of existing urban land means better use of roads and rail, and better use of schools, hospitals, sewerage and electricity links.
We have now reached a critical juncture: it is time for planners to decide how to shape Melbourne in the next 20 to 40 years - to ensure the world's third most liveable city remains affordable, attractive, vibrant and accessible.
RMIT University associate professor Michael Buxton, who advised the Victorian government on its planning strategy Melbourne 2030, warns that unless planning changes quickly, Melbourne could evolve into two cities: wealthy inner suburbs with good services, and those in the outer ring, car-dependent and with fewer choices of schools and hospitals.
''What we are getting is a social exclusion in Melbourne that is really alarming … Melbourne is becoming polarised increasingly,'' he says.
A 2008 report by the state government's Growth Areas Authority highlights how almost nine out of 10 residents in growth areas such as Melton in Melbourne's west travel almost 20 kilometres to work by car; in Cardinia in Melbourne's south-east, eight out of 10 drive an average 21 kilometres to work. The report shows there are fewer jobs in the fringe suburbs and of those jobs that are available, a higher percentage are blue-collar.
Buxton says a city with lower income groups in outer-suburban areas and the affluent and advanced business jobs in the inner and middle suburbs is a dangerous social recipe: ''Two different societies, separated with an increasing resentment occurring, completely different access to jobs and advancement and income.''
With its population booming, Melbourne does not have much time to get its planning right.
Planning Minister Justin Madden is overhauling the state's planning system at many levels to speed up construction - new committees that will largely remove planning decisions from local governments in key growth areas such as Doncaster Hill, Preston, Geelong, Camberwell and Coburg, and an overhaul of the planning and environment act. This will give developers a much greater role in some planning cases and the minister complete planning control in others.
But quicker planning does not necessarily mean better planning. What many consider as too rapid and largely unfettered urban growth during the Kennett years led to the formation of groups such as Save Our Suburbs. The challenge now for planners is to fit more people in existing suburbs while not harming the nuances and charm that make Melbourne so attractive. It is also about planning for everyone - making new housing affordable.
Buxton says government has to play a much stronger role and push for ''inclusionary zoning'' - forcing new developments to include affordable housing.
In Palo Alto in the San Francisco bay area, local authorities found land and housing was becoming so expensive that teachers, nurses and other occupations were being priced out of living in the neighbourhoods so they mandated policies such as that 20 per cent of floor space had to be for lower-income groups.
One of the problems, Buxton says, is that Melbourne does not use its existing land close to services well enough. He says the government should consider taxing developers and investors that sit on developable land. Under-utilised urban land costs every Victorian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs of building new services from scratch on Melbourne's fringe.
Architect Callum Fraser is one calling for better use of Melbourne's existing urban space. He says buildings of up to eight storeys should be considered for Brunswick Street and Smith Street in Fitzroy and Collingwood to provide more housing.
Yet the high-rise debate is divisive. Critics say that developers are taking the idea of high density to the limit to maximise profits, building suburban skyscrapers out of character with neighbourhoods that will stretch already stressed local services and create ''middle-class ghettos''.
STEPHEN Jolly, the Socialist Party councillor with the City of Yarra and candidate for the seat of Richmond at this year's state election, says he does not want to see Docklands-style developments built in the suburbs and points to a proposal for a 586-apartment redevelopment of the old Honeywell site in Richmond near the Yarra River. ''What we need to put on the Honeywell site is a community, not just middle-class ghettos with matchbox apartments,'' he says.
Others say the cost of apartments mean they are not an alternative to cheap housing on Melbourne's urban fringe. The median unit price in Victoria is above the median house price - offering little incentive and few options to downsize.
Robert Pradolin, from developer Australand, says many city apartment developments proposed along Melbourne's tram lines are priced out of the reach of most people. ''Those apartments are for the millionaires. Where's the apartment or the alternative house that the average person can afford to buy for $350,000 to $400,000 for two bedrooms or three bedrooms?'' He says high labour costs for multi-unit developments in the suburbs are either preventing many developments or pricing average buyers out of the market.
Yet despite the challenges of increased density, the change to a more compact city is already happening. While three-quarters of Victoria's homes continue to be the traditional single detached house on a block, there has been a big shift in the remaining 25 per cent of dwellings.
Semi-detached dwellings in the remaining housing stock have fallen from 52 per cent in 2004 to 41 per cent in 2009. At the same time, the proportion of flats of four or more storeys increased from 36 per cent to 48 per cent of housing, outside the traditional single house on a block, research by the Housing Industry Association shows.
Moreland in Melbourne's inner north-west is the epicentre of multi-unit, medium-density building with a 15 per cent increase in planning applications involving more than one dwelling last financial year. Nearby Darebin had the second highest number of multi-dwelling applications.
What angers people such as Greens MP Greg Barber is the idea that the increase in the population will automatically dent the character and liveability of these suburbs. Barber, a former mayor of the City of Yarra, says that despite the increase in dwellings in places such as Fitzroy, there are still fewer people living there now compared with 50 years ago, when smaller houses accommodated more people.
Robert Larocca, former mayor of Moreland and now with the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, estimates that in 1976 there were almost 30,000 more people living in Coburg and Pascoe Vale than there are now. Larocca says increasing population density in many areas is simply returning suburbs to previous population levels.
The Planning Minister agrees, saying increased population can be a big positive for local businesses, sporting and community groups. Madden says many of Melbourne's inner suburbs have previously housed many more people. ''We have seen a change in the way houses are used.'' Workers' cottages in the 19th century often housed a family of five. ''Siblings shared a bed,'' he says.
These days, ''siblings have their own room and in some instances siblings have their own ensuite as well''. Madden says that by increasing the density of some of Melbourne's suburbs, ''we're not really changing the mix that these suburbs were established on''.
Addressing the vexed issue of affordability - which hit a record low in the last quarter of 2009 in Melbourne according to one report - Madden points to increased development of units as bringing down the cost of a home.
But Pradolin says affordability is being traded for space and many units entering the market at an affordable price are too small to live in for any extended period.
The delivery of more affordable housing - housing that people can and want to live in - in Melbourne's existing suburbs requires a plan. Yet neither side of politics in Victoria has delivered it.
Developers and anti-development community groups agree: much of Melbourne's planning over recent years has been a mess. There have been four planning ministers in the past decade and Melbourne's 30-year planning document, Melbourne 2030, has been all but abandoned by the government.
Professor Rob Moodie, picked by the government to review Melbourne 2030 two years ago, says that if people are to have the opportunity to buy a home near where they grew up, to live near their family in sustainable communities, all suburbs and communities across Melbourne have to share the housing burden and accept more people.
Melbourne needs a proper urban plan to retain its liveability, says Buxton, a plan that has a focus on sustainability and affordability and better using what we have.
A plan that looks in.
Says Moodie: ''We have got to get back to big planning.''
