Victoria’s planning minister says she is open to speaking to councils that want to convert offices into apartments after Melbourne’s lord mayor touted the idea as a way to boost housing supply.
Nicholas Reece told the Age on Thursday that if voted in at October’s council elections he would introduce incentives to encourageturning office buildings into apartments.
The idea was included in the Victorian government’s housing statement last year but industry experts have that warned retrofitting offices is a costly and difficult undertaking.
It comes as the Victorian government on Thursday unveiled a plan to fast-track planning approvals for housing developments up to 20-storeys high in 10 hubs across metropolitan Melbourne, close to transport, shops and schools.
Reece said if re-elected as lord mayor he would refund planning permits and building permit application fees where 100 apartments were created in office buildings. He said reduced council rates and a 30% increase in building height for the development would be other incentives.
Reece told Guardian Australia reducing the embodied carbon – emitted during the construction of a building – was a key advantage of repurposing offices.
Asked about the lord mayor’s proposal, the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, said transforming office buildings into homes was “more complex than what first meets the eye”.
The planning minister, Sonya Kilkenny, said it was possible some office buildings could be knocked down instead of retrofitted but this was a matter for developers.
“I’m not ruling anything in or out of what’s on the table,” she said. “If other local councils want to look at and investigate options and opportunities for this, I’m very willing to chat to them about how it can happen.”
The proposal came after the Property Council last year identified 86 buildings in Melbourne’s central business district suitable for conversion. The housing statement, released in September, estimated that the conversion of old and under-used office buildings could result in 10,000 to 12,000 apartments and mixed-used properties.
Jago Dodson, a professor of urban policy at RMIT, said office buildings were typically not designed with conversion to residential-use in mind.
“That includes depth of buildings, height and utilities within the building such as elevators, electrical, sewerage,” he said.
But Dodson said the
idea was “certainly worthwhile investigating” if it could boost Melbourne’s housing supply.
Brendan Coates, the housing and economic security program director at the Grattan Institute, said it was a good idea in principle but remained unproven.
Allan said a working group, which included the City of Melbourne, was considering how under-utilised offices could be turned into apartments.
Under the pilot program to fast-track planning approvals in 10 priority areas, the wait time will drop from up to five years to 12 months. Developments of townhouses and apartments up to six storeys high will be encouraged.
Allan said the height rules would vary to suit the “local character” and needs of different communities.
The ranges vary from six storeys near Camberwell Junction to 20 storeys in Ringwood.
The 10 hubs, as previously announced, are: Broadmeadows, Camberwell Junction, Chadstone, Epping, Frankston, Moorabbin, Niddrie (Keilor Road), North Essendon, Preston (High Street) and Ringwood. The plans aim to create an extra 60,000 homes across the areas by 2051.
Kilkenny said the plans would help the community understand what the activity areas would look like over the next 20 to 30 years.
“What’s important is getting homes in the right places and the right types of homes in those places as well,” she said. “This is all about making sure that we can get more Victorians living in these wonderful, connected local neighbourhoods where there is such terrific access to public transport, to jobs and to services.”
The plans will be open for community feedback until 29 September.
In June the Allan government announced proposed housing targets for local government areas, which it said could lead to the construction of 2.5m new homes by 2051.
The housing statement included the plan to build 800,000 homes over the next decade. The then premier, Daniel Andrews, described it as “the most comprehensive shake-up of one of the most important policy areas in decades”.
Critics said the proposed policies would make it easier for developers to bypass opposition from local government and community groups.
