Master Builders has just completed its submission to the Victorian Government’s Better Apartments: Draft Design Standards.

Click here to read the full text of Master Builders’ formal response.

With the population of Greater Melbourne predicted to grow to 8 million by 2051, a further 2.2 million dwellings are expected to be required , a significant number of which will be apartments. Victoria needs to embrace this population growth and implement sensible and sustainable policies that will enhance the liveability of Melbourne without worsening our housing affordability crisis.

In general, Master Builders supports an investigation into liveability standards for apartment design, where an investigation uses a robust and data driven view of the needs of the industry and community. We advocate for an outcome that ensures that the correct balance between liveability and affordability is maintained and the industry’s viability is supported.

With this in mind, in our submission, Master Builders has made a number of solution-driven recommendations:

Market needs

Master Builders recommends that research should be conducted and released which provides useful details about Victoria’s future apartment demand, including the types of apartments, geographic locations and other population data. This information should then provide the basis for what, if any, specific problems need to be addressed through apartment guidelines.

Master Builders recommends that data on apartments that are a source of concern is needed, to show how design standards can fix these concerns. At present, the term ‘dog boxes’ doesn’t deliver enough information to enable the design of measureable objectives for apartment design.

Housing affordability

Master Builders recommends that the government provide a detailed analysis of the cost of each proposed standard on apartment construction and housing affordability, to demonstrate the cumulative impact that all of these standards will have on costs and supply.

Breadth of proposed standards

Master Builders recommends that the breadth of the design features should be reduced on the basis of the needs and cost-benefit analysis.  Prioritising these necessary design features (as opposed to “nice to have” features, should reduce the cost and supply impacts of the proposals.

Operation of guidelines

Master Builders recommends that the objectives of the draft standards be re-drafted as measurable performance-based outcomes, which would then allow the prescriptive standards to be eliminated.

Master Builders considers the proposed three-month period transitional period to be too short, and that a two-year transitional period is more reasonable.

Unnecessary red tape

Master Builders recommends that steps that add unnecessary red tape should be avoided, such as Step 4 of the Draft Standards.