As Australia suffers from an acute shortage of housing, both rental and houses for sale, Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC) has put forward its response to help address the crisis.
TRC believes the best method to address the housing shortage is to reduce regulations so as to speed up housing supply.
After submitting plans for a Temporary Local Planning Instrument 01/2022 – Housing Assistance Measures (TLPI) to the State Government, TRC Planning and Development Committee Chair Cr Megan O’Hara Sullivan said Council had further refined the document to matters raised by the State Government.
“Council has been in discussions with representatives of the development industry for a long time now about what measures Council can take to simplify and speed up the approval process for new housing across the region,” Cr O’Hara Sullivan said.
“These discussions have centered around how we can reduce the level of regulation applying to the creation of additional housing in greenfield development areas on the fringe of Toowoomba City as well as stormwater solutions for sites in existing urban areas making them more feasible for development, to assist in addressing housing stress currently being experienced within the Toowoomba region.
“While the longer term plan will be to progress a new Planning Scheme for the Toowoomba region, with this piece of work expected to be ready by 2025, we know we need to do something sooner than this which is why we’ve progressed with a TLPI.
“We have listened to the concerns of our community and have proposed the TLPI as we believe it could provide shorter term assistance for the development industry to provide residential lots and housing products in a shorter time frame.
“This move will create a simpler, shorter and lower-risk process for the development of land with access to existing or planned infrastructure.
“The changes have now been made to address the matters raised by the State Government with the proposed TLPI now in the process of being sent through for Ministerial Approval.
“Following the review we’re hoping to have a swift turnaround so these changes can be implemented for our community.”
This article appeared in On Our Selection News, 3 November 2022.
