I live in Adelaide and my landlord recently got a backyard home for renting. The backyard room is actually better than mine and tenant pays the highest rent in the house. Mostly because he has a attached kitchen.
I'd be really into the caravan rental idea. I know it's somewhat common in the US but it's highly regulated since it's associated with poverty. I think you can really make something like work in Australia for a premium customer. I do remote work and move every 6-12 months so I'd really up for that.
On infrastructure charges, I was taking to some old ex-colleagues the other week and they made the comment that each new subdivision lot (IC $30k) was costing them in actual real costs of $60k. So they were effectively losing $30k, which is being picked up by the ratepayers and slowing sending the Council bankrupt. Apparently the State Government is helping to subsidise the Council to make up this shortfall.
It is even worse in Redlands where they are saying the real infrastructure costs (development infrastructure only) is $100k, so they are losing $70k on each new subdivision lot.
I think if the general public knew this sort of thing there would (should be) a huge uproar.
Good point Neil. Different places have different public infrastructure costs needed to support new development. Prior to 2011, I worked at the QCA reviewing infrastructure charge calculations that councils were required to do under a process that was meant to be cost-reflective. Some charges in some parts of council areas came in high. Other areas lower. The State suddenly announced that they didn't want these charges to be cost-reflective and set the maximum charge that we've had since.
At the end of the day, it is a democratic question about the degree to which we socialise the cost of growth (and I think we should to some degree). But I'm sure our capitalist developer mates wouldn't put it that way ;-)
Cam, I wasted 5 years on my life working on IC at both a State and Local Government level.
I was firstly working in the State Government under Marcus Spiller, who you may know, and in its infancy the proposed IC Model was an economist purist model. Put simply developed in areas that had good infrastructure networks with spare capacity and your IC was at the low end. Develop in more far flung areas where infrastructure networks were poor or non-existent then it was a higher IC. But these IC were NEVER about full cost recovery, but a proportion of your usage of the network atomised over 30 years.
I then moved to Logan CC and eventually I got sucked back into the IC vortex. By that stage the new IC regime was still in its infancy. It was at this stage (probably during your QCA review period) that the State Government adopted the $30k per residential lot based on our (Logan's) then Planning Scheme Policy IC (i.e. the old IC calculation model). At that time Logan was a city with well established development infrastructure networks, so really the cost of each new lot was not a high cost relative to the more greenfield councils (I am not clear on the dates, but I think this was pre-amalgamation, so this would now change with the likes of Yarrabilba and Flagstone etc). Really the guy the State Government had doing this work (I can't remember his name) was totally out of his depth in weighing up the pros and cons and I think adopting our charge was seen as a political decision that gave them some semblance of cover.
So now you have a situation where a developer can be locationally and cost indifferent, because his IC is the same if he develops in a well established area with spare capacity or a more remote location (admittedly he may get hit up with some bring forward costs / works).
I don't disagree with the idea that some things need to be socialised in terms of costs. But it irks me that:
1. Some poor bastard in Woodridge is heavily subsiding development infrastructure in another part of the city that s/he will never use.
2. All this talk of lower IC will result in a lower price to the end buyer. I walked around a new proposed master plan suburb with the Stockland's Economist and he was just talking price points with nearby suburbs as their frame of reference. In other words the COSTS to developed the land (Including high or low IC) had nothing to do with the ultimate price of their house and land package. It was simply a matter of what was the likely maximum they could charge in comparison to nearby new development sites.
Logan City Council has Auxiliary House as an administrative definition that doesn't require planning approval. Provided you comply with the requirements it is the same as the split house mentioned here. With some pre-planning you can design the house so the party wall can be taken down if you want a larger single dwelling, or just have a door that can be fixed until such time as you want a single dwelling.
I live in Adelaide and my landlord recently got a backyard home for renting. The backyard room is actually better than mine and tenant pays the highest rent in the house. Mostly because he has a attached kitchen.
I'd be really into the caravan rental idea. I know it's somewhat common in the US but it's highly regulated since it's associated with poverty. I think you can really make something like work in Australia for a premium customer. I do remote work and move every 6-12 months so I'd really up for that.
On infrastructure charges, I was taking to some old ex-colleagues the other week and they made the comment that each new subdivision lot (IC $30k) was costing them in actual real costs of $60k. So they were effectively losing $30k, which is being picked up by the ratepayers and slowing sending the Council bankrupt. Apparently the State Government is helping to subsidise the Council to make up this shortfall.
It is even worse in Redlands where they are saying the real infrastructure costs (development infrastructure only) is $100k, so they are losing $70k on each new subdivision lot.
I think if the general public knew this sort of thing there would (should be) a huge uproar.
Good point Neil. Different places have different public infrastructure costs needed to support new development. Prior to 2011, I worked at the QCA reviewing infrastructure charge calculations that councils were required to do under a process that was meant to be cost-reflective. Some charges in some parts of council areas came in high. Other areas lower. The State suddenly announced that they didn't want these charges to be cost-reflective and set the maximum charge that we've had since.
At the end of the day, it is a democratic question about the degree to which we socialise the cost of growth (and I think we should to some degree). But I'm sure our capitalist developer mates wouldn't put it that way ;-)
Cam, I wasted 5 years on my life working on IC at both a State and Local Government level.
I was firstly working in the State Government under Marcus Spiller, who you may know, and in its infancy the proposed IC Model was an economist purist model. Put simply developed in areas that had good infrastructure networks with spare capacity and your IC was at the low end. Develop in more far flung areas where infrastructure networks were poor or non-existent then it was a higher IC. But these IC were NEVER about full cost recovery, but a proportion of your usage of the network atomised over 30 years.
I then moved to Logan CC and eventually I got sucked back into the IC vortex. By that stage the new IC regime was still in its infancy. It was at this stage (probably during your QCA review period) that the State Government adopted the $30k per residential lot based on our (Logan's) then Planning Scheme Policy IC (i.e. the old IC calculation model). At that time Logan was a city with well established development infrastructure networks, so really the cost of each new lot was not a high cost relative to the more greenfield councils (I am not clear on the dates, but I think this was pre-amalgamation, so this would now change with the likes of Yarrabilba and Flagstone etc). Really the guy the State Government had doing this work (I can't remember his name) was totally out of his depth in weighing up the pros and cons and I think adopting our charge was seen as a political decision that gave them some semblance of cover.
So now you have a situation where a developer can be locationally and cost indifferent, because his IC is the same if he develops in a well established area with spare capacity or a more remote location (admittedly he may get hit up with some bring forward costs / works).
I don't disagree with the idea that some things need to be socialised in terms of costs. But it irks me that:
1. Some poor bastard in Woodridge is heavily subsiding development infrastructure in another part of the city that s/he will never use.
2. All this talk of lower IC will result in a lower price to the end buyer. I walked around a new proposed master plan suburb with the Stockland's Economist and he was just talking price points with nearby suburbs as their frame of reference. In other words the COSTS to developed the land (Including high or low IC) had nothing to do with the ultimate price of their house and land package. It was simply a matter of what was the likely maximum they could charge in comparison to nearby new development sites.
Logan City Council has Auxiliary House as an administrative definition that doesn't require planning approval. Provided you comply with the requirements it is the same as the split house mentioned here. With some pre-planning you can design the house so the party wall can be taken down if you want a larger single dwelling, or just have a door that can be fixed until such time as you want a single dwelling.
Minute 27 + 19 secs
“… a large and growing “distopia” from India….” ( “ added). ????!!!