Affordable Housing: A Dilemma for Metropolitan Planning?

Metropolitan planning in Australia is now overwhelmingly directed towards managing and limiting the outward growth of cities (Birrell et al., 2005; Forster, 2004). While cities are still expected to grow in terms of population and new households, the physical extent of this growth is to be contained by intensifying development in inner areas and limiting the conversion of rural land on the urban fringe. Commonly called ‘urban consolidation’ or ‘containment’, advocates claim that compact urban forms cause less air pollution, have lower energy and water demands, result in lower biodiversity loss, and promote a more efficient and equitable use of urban infrastructure. But others question the largely unexamined social and environmental impacts of higher density development (e.g. Holloway & Bunker, 2006; Randolph, 2006) particularly when this is interpreted solely in relation to apartments, rather than the broader mix of housing types that can achieve greater density without a significant shift in urban form. The other fundamental attack on urban containment policies in Australia and internationally is that containment makes housing less affordable by artificially restricting the supply of land (e.g. Demographia, 2007). If true, this would appear to present an irreconcilable dilemma for city planners as preserving and promoting affordable housing is also a primary objective of metropolitan strategies in Australia (Searle, 2006; Beer et al., 2007). This article considers this apparent dilemma, drawing on current research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) on international approaches in planning for affordable housing (Gurran et al., 2007). Firstly, it reviews the argument that current metropolitan planning and the objectives of urban containment, or growth management, are fundamentally incompatible with affordable housing. It then compares the range of affordable housing strategies currently contained within metropolitan plans applying to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Finally, it considers