“HIA acknowledges that specifying ambitious housing targets for each council to is important but recent reporting highlights that most councils are falling well short of their respective targets.  

“This trend will only continue while the home building industry is further weighed down by increasing government taxes, costs and regulation reforms.

“The recent reports have identified two key issues with the housing targets.

“First, many suburban councils are not receiving sufficient numbers of applications for planning permits to meet their targets.  Councils cannot be adversely judged if customers do not want to have homes built in the locations councils can make available.  

“Second, almost all the councils that were exceeding their housing targets were those on the urban fringe of Melbourne.  

“It is becoming increasingly clear that customer demand for greenfield land and homes is driving more building activity. 

“HIA calls on the government to improve the collection and publication of planning and building approval data so that a process for capturing not only approvals, but number and type of applications, can be measured.  

“This will provide a true basis for judging not only the performance of councils but provide key information about where Victorians want to have homes built and types of homes they want.  

“While the Victorian government should be commended for setting ambitious housing targets, it also needs to collect and publish meaningful data so progress can be measured.

“Equally, as it continues to become apparent that planning permit applications are not being made in certain areas the government must be willing to review the housing targets to be more reflective of the types and locations of housing Victorian’s are seeking”, concluded Mr Ryan.

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