Reece said the City of Melbourne had approved close to 100 projects, comprising 16,000 new homes in total, which were yet to be built.
ord Mayor Nick Reece during a talk for the Lord Mayoral candidates at Fed Square.Credit: Simon Schluter
“The developers, basically they’re Apex capitalists,” he said. “If they can make a dollar they’ll do it. If they can’t, they won’t. At the moment, they can’t make a dollar and so they’re not starting. So if you come along with a new impost, like a 30 per cent inclusionary zoning requirement for affordable housing, you will put further constraints on the supply of new housing.”
Reece also pushed back on Ingleton’s call to remove the Neighbourhood Residential Zone that imposes height restrictions on some parts of Melbourne.
“Will that add to housing supply in Melbourne? Not a scintilla,” he said. “What it will do is potentially wreck some of the most beautiful streetscapes in Melbourne.”
Instead, Reece called for more development in growth areas such as Arden and Fisherman’s Bend and the redevelopment of office buildings into residential housing, pointing to 80 buildings identified by the Property Council of Australia and Hassell architects as suitable for redevelopment which he said would deliver 4,000 homes.
Independent lord mayoral candidate and former Carlton footballer Anthony Koutoufides, who is heading the ‘Team Kouta’ ticket, also called for the conversion of office buildings into housing if there was a “bit of cream at the top for builders”.
However, the office buildings identified by Reece and Koutafides are privately owned and none of the owners have agreed to convert the buildings.
Independent lord mayoral candidate Arron Wood said office conversions were “no panacea” for the housing crisis.
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“What we know is that for a commercial building to transition into housing, it has to be at about 80 to 90 per cent of its value gone,” he said. “I’m not willing to put my hand up in Melbourne and say that our economy is that shot, that our commercial building sector is at 80 to 90 per cent of its value, because I can tell you we would be in a recession right now.”
Independent lord mayoral candidate Jamal Hakim said many of the office buildings identified were too expensive to convert to residential buildings because of their design.
“Housing is a right not a luxury,” he said. Hakim said he wanted to see well-designed housing built on council-owned land and for the council to advocate for social and public housing to the state and federal governments.
Ingleton told the debate that given the potential yield for developers on renewal areas like Arden, Egate and Dynon, which were yet to be sold to private developers, the Greens were confident the building finance would stack up.
“We say that the affordable housing rate in those areas should be 30 per cent, well below London’s 50 per cent, but in line with what developers can handle on newly-sold sites.”
A poll by YIMBY Melbourne of attendees at the debate saw a big swing away from Reece during the debate and towards Hakim.
Before the debate attendees were asked who they would vote for and 16.4 per cent said Reece, but this dropped to 2.9 per cent by the end of the debate. In contrast, 16.4 per cent said they would vote for Hakim which increased to 29.4 per cent following the debate.
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