Hobart’s housing market failure
The single most important change required in the City of Hobart is provision of mixed use, medium density housing in the city’s heart. A city filled with people has so many benefits to the broader community. A city filled with people is a connected community. A community where movement for essentials, work or pleasure is easy.
People who live in a city’s heart spend less time stuck in their car. With Australians spending an average of 48 minutes per day commuting, the time gained from living close to work is significant. And it’s not just work, people who live in a city’s heart are more likely to be able to access most things they need within a short walk or bike ride of home. This leaves more time for city dwellers to engage in the things they love: catch up with a friend at the local café, play basketball with a mate or go for a waterfront stroll along the Battery Point Walkway. All the while decreasing congestion and traffic for everyone else.
Because walking or riding is easier than getting the car out, communities in a city’s heart are more likely to meet daily exercise targets. They are more likely to be healthy and active, which not only means they have a higher quality of life but also means less burden on an already overloaded health system. Let’s remember that about 35% of the entire state budget is spent on healthcare, so decreasing the burden on that system through social change is key to the State’s prosperity.
Vibrant city hearts also contribute to prosperity of business owners and traders because it is people who spend money. The more people living in a city’s heart the more money is spent in the city. It means that opportunity abounds for all types of business, from hospitality to essential suppliers, technology providers to retailers.
When the city heart is filled with people 24/7 night life springs to life too. Inner city dwellers love a cheeky afterwork beer that spills into dinner. The shared experience of regular patrons in nighttime venues builds relationships and makes for stronger, more harmonious communities. Just think how the English pub provides a third space beyond home and work for people to connect. This is what happens at inner city venues when people live in the city’s heart.
And its not just the economy and business that win financially. People who live in a city’s heart are likely to spend far less on transport than those on the urban fringe. Families can manage with one car and only have to fill that car up once every couple of months. This saves thousands of dollars for families, who then contribute that windfall back into our communities. They buy that dress they’ve always wanted, they can afford to have lunch out and they go out to the cinema, TSO or to see a theatre production. That is why a city’s heart filled with people is a place where art and culture thrive. We know the best towns and cities around the world have thriving cultural scenes.
Building houses on the urban fringe achieves the opposite of all this. Building houses on the urban fringe decreases economic spending in the community, puts pressure on family budgets, deprives parents of time with their children and drives congestion. Building houses on the urban fringe creates a community that is unhealthy, disconnected and lonely. Building houses on the urban fringe massively increases tax payer subsidy through enormous infrastructure costs, including brand new sewerage, water, power and road assets - things that already exist in our cities.
With all of these amazing benefits in mind, it is incredibly worrying to see the Macquarie Place development at the old Motors site on Macquarie Street collapse as a result of increasing construction costs. It is disturbing that almost one thousand dwellings in the City of Hobart are approved but have not commenced construction. It is unfathomable that the K&D Site could remain undeveloped for another decade. For our collective future, it is demoralising to suggest that we cannot build homes in OUR city’s heart because the private market has failed.
Urgently resolving the market failure of medium density housing through government action is essential for future prosperity of this city and for the state of Tasmania. Local Government must come together with State and Federal governments to understand the problems facing the sector and pull every policy lever available to get the medium density construction industry thriving in Hobart. Failure to do this will mean more pressure on families, a struggling city, more small businesses going bust and entrenched social and economic disadvantage as more members or our community are pushed further and further from the city.
Now is the time for the government to show some heart and step in to assist the market to provide high quality inner city living for the benefit of the whole community.