The report found:“building new infrastructure in these[outer] areas can be up to four times more expensive than adapting existing infrastructure in established suburbs that have the capacity to support growth”. It advocates three changes:reduce price disincentives in established suburbs;build more homes near transport and services;and increase the diversity and choice of the homes. The logic seems inexorably sensible in opposition to the soulless,poorly serviced suburbs further out.
While the existing city has a well-resourced infrastructure of health,education,sporting and retail facilities,as well as transport,electricity and water services,it is under-utilised. Melbourne’s residential density is too low to be efficient or sustainable. At half the density of Paris,it’s even lower than Los Angeles,the supposed beacon of car-dependent unsustainability.
The caution,as the report notes,is to ensure the new “infill” housing is done with great care and sensitivity,particularly regarding scale. It’s refreshing to see the issues addressed from a scientific and engineering approach rather than an aesthetic one,usually invoked in opposition. New house designs,with better performance characteristics,need not overload existing services,and in most cases will add to the vibrancy of existing suburbs,certainly in comparison to the mundanity at the edges.
Loading
One standout failure in the report,however,is the promotion of the three-bedroom family home as the main infill type,based on extensive original research including interviews with 6000 potential residents of fringe suburbs. Two issues are missed:changes in demographics mean that families with children are no longer the predominant household;and we already have an overabundance of housing for them,given that generation after generation has built out this monoculture.
There is a diversity of households that are often not catered for in suburban family homes:micro studios and lofts for singles,students,and couples,smaller apartments and studios sharing common facilities,home offices,larger communal properties for share houses,community-based retirement villages with in-house staff,shop top housing in “transport-oriented design” on high streets with services along tram and train lines.
All these housing types could fill in the many “holes” in undeveloped or underdeveloped land in existing suburbia,but the report largely overlooks the need for this greater diversity of homes.