Canberra has grown a great deal since its foundation stone was laid on 12 March 1913 by then prime minister Andrew Fisher. Back then our population numbered less than 2,000 residents. The needle didn’t shift much in the following decades due to the depression, two world wars and the delayed transfer of departments to the new capital. By 1945, our population numbered just 13,000.
Fast forward to 1966 and we’d grown to 96,000 and today we’re nudging close to half a million. By 2050, it’s projected there’ll be almost 700,000 people calling the nation’s capital home.
So where will everyone live? It’s a question currently generating discussion in the community following the recent tabling of a report by the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Environment and Planning entitled Missing Middle Housing Reform – Inquiry into Draft Major Amendment to the Territory Plan 04.
Middle housing refers to medium density housing such as townhouses, terraces, duplexes and low-rise apartments. They’re ‘middle’ because in size they sit between detached houses on single residential blocks and larger apartment buildings. Recommendations in the report seek to address a gap in the availability of middle housing options throughout existing Canberra suburbs. Hence the term ‘missing middle’.
As set out in the ACT Government’s Missing Middle Reform Comparison Table, a fundamental aspect of this would be ‘changes to the Territory Plan that would remove barriers in the planning system and encourage the building of new housing types like multi-occupancies, townhouses, terraces and low-rise apartment buildings that blend into existing neighbourhoods’.
Committee Chair Ms Jo Clay said “Key recommendations focus on increasing public, community and affordable housing supply, ensuring adequate infrastructure and amenity in denser suburbs and establishing stronger monitoring of the cumulative impacts of the reforms for issues such as parking, urban heat, tree canopy and neighbourhood character.”
In a media release Missing Middle report done – now pass the reforms the Property Council of Australia welcomed the reforms and called on the ACT Government to move quickly to finalise and start the Territory Plan changes.
One group less supportive of the reforms is the North Canberra Community Council, which expressed concerns during the public consultation period in their NCCC Submission on Proposed Middle Housing Reforms.
More information, including a video and detailed design guide, is available on the ACT Government’s Missing Middle Housing Reforms webpage.
