TBB’s World Café on housing supply

17 Sep 2024

Last month our team participated in a World Café engagement activity to collaborate on ideas to boost housing supply in WA.

What do you get when you put 24 highly experienced and passionate town planners and urban designers in a World Café and ask them to solve housing supply challenges? Take a look below.

Last month, as a part of our regular lunch-n-learns, the TBB team were taken through a World Café exercise by our in-house IAP2 specialists, Karen Hyde, Cassie Barrow and Katherine Shirley. The World Café methodology is a simple collaborative format that encourages dialogue around a set of questions. Not only did the session provide the opportunity to brainstorm how the state government and other regulatory agencies can help boost housing supply in WA, it also served as a valuable knowledge-sharing opportunity, participating in a "live" example of best-practice engagement.

With over 250 years of collective experience across participants, the exercise delivered some insightful ideas and actions that could potentially assist in the delivery of housing supply:  

1. Champion the delivery of good quality, affordable and innovative housing

The state government can play a key role in promoting and advocating for housing that achieves: 

• good design principles and outcomes
• affordable housing options
• innovative and alternative forms of housing

The pursuit of affordability and good design and innovation can co-exist. This could be achieved through alternative forms of construction, new typologies (such as tiny houses), and alternative design approaches.  

Particular attention should be paid to ensure that unlocking housing supply in greenfield areas does not compromise the ability of the government to work with industry to achieve the State Government’s targets as outlined in the Perth and Peel @3.5 million sub-regional planning frameworks for infill areas. To meet these infill targets, focus should be given to unlocking housing supply in strategic locations identified for infill development in areas that benefit from services and amenities, such as surrounding train stations, activity centres, and key public transit corridors. 

Our Ideas: 

• Take a collaborative approach to identify key infill areas for housing supply in strategic locations. 
• Undertake research and analysis to identify innovative construction and design methods.
• Undertake research on alternative forms of housing (for example, by looking to other interstate and international locations). 

Focus should be given to unlocking housing supply in strategic locations

2. Make feasibility and affordability the priority

The ability to deliver housing in the current economic climate and its impact on feasibility was seen as being a key consideration. Identifying ways to make development more feasible, particularly higher-density forms of housing in the outer ring of the Perth metropolitan area was considered an option.  

The current incentive approaches, such as providing discounted or free land, minimising developer contributions, and providing bonus density through height and plot ratio controls, do not, in many cases, improve feasibility and support delivery. New mechanisms need to be implemented that address housing affordability for groups such as the lower socio-economic community, first-home buyers, empty-nesters and the migrant community.

Our Ideas: 

• Think outside the box to develop new mechanisms for incentives to assist with feasibility, but also encourage innovation and affordability.
• Attract more existing WA residents to the construction industry to support migrant workers.
• Unlock supply chains to provide greater availability and diversity of building materials. 

New mechanisms need to be Implemented that address housing affordability

3. Develop ‘showcase’ housing and facilitate strategic partnerships

Beyond unlocking land in infill areas, ‘showcase’ housing developments in key strategic areas and showcasing innovative homes and typologies by both the public and private developers should be encouraged. This would contribute to the existing efforts of various State Government Departments / agencies such as DevelopmentWA and the Department of Communities. Delivery could be undertaken independently and jointly across established government housing units, as well as by housing developers and providers.

Leveraging cross-government relationships to deliver a best-practice product and facilitating key strategic partnerships with industry could achieve a market-responsive, viable product that can be delivered efficiently and effectively.

Our Ideas: 

• Deliver “showcase” housing developments in key strategic areas such as Metronet station precincts.
• Leverage cross-government relationships and facilitate key strategic partnerships with industry.

 4. Advocate for enhanced development assessment and decision-making processes 

Further enhancements to past (and recent) planning reform processes, particularly any perceived or actual problems with assessment timeframes and approval processes, have the potential to alleviate pressure on the feasibility and delivery of housing. General conversations within the industry suggest improvements could be made to the somewhat lengthy and convoluted development assessment and condition-clearing processes and a clearer understanding of the need to consider new or alternative approaches. This would all assist in understanding the ‘bigger picture’ and help the industry tackle housing supply issues on a united front.

Our Ideas: 

• Further improvements to streamline approval processes, improve government coordination and collaboration, and reduce risk for proponents.
• Opportunities for education and training to help understand new or alternative approaches that may be outside of the ‘norm’.
• Encourage collaboration between regulatory agencies.
• Foster broader industry cultural change.

Where to from here?

The ideas generated during our World Café session are really just the start of an ongoing conversation with the industry and regulatory bodies to help tackle housing supply issues for the State. Innovative engagement techniques play a key role in bringing together the power of teamwork and foster innovative thinking. With a collaborative approach and a commitment to action, we can make affordable, well-designed housing a reality.

Want to join the conversation? Reach out to our team today and be part of the change.

Learn more about the role TBB is taking in advocating for WA's housing needs here

With a collaborative approach and a commitment to action, we can make affordable, well-designed housing a reality