It was welcome news that the ACT Government recently abandoned plans to introduce the Independent Planning Advisory Service (IPAS).

This poorly conceived idea, which we’ve previously dubbed ‘legal aid for NIMBY’s’, would have given free legal and planning support to objectors. It exists nowhere else in the country, and flies in the face of the current housing crisis and our efforts to resolve it.

It’s been reported that it won’t go ahead due to there being no tenders received to run the service, but in reality it should never have been proposed in the first place. In the middle of the housing crisis we should be supporting development not spending taxpayer funds to stop new dwellings being built.

This week consultation also closed for the ACT Missing Middle reforms, which hopes to see more low-rise multi-residential development built in Canberra suburbs, and is a concept HIA broadly supports.

However, while reforms will increase the scope of what developments can occur, and where they can be located, the current lack of this type of development in the city is not a planning issue alone. It is due to a number of systemic taxation, approval and legal issues that must also be addressed if the benefit of the Missing Middle changes are to be realised.