Experts speaking at an industry breakfast say utility providers are failing to meet housing demand.
Property experts say state government agencies are stifling the rollout of houses in Western Australia at a time when demand is increasing.
Speaking at a Herron Todd White breakfast this morning, Strategic Property Group managing director Trent Fleskens pointed out that residential land sales were dropping in WA.
This is despite the volume of transactions increasing overall.
“In a time where we need supply more than ever, and that the land space is the path of least resistance for this industry to provide that supply ..., we’re really not performing to the extent that we need to,” he told the audience.
He commented on the Housing Industry Association's recent forecasts that WA would not meet the federal government’s targets of about 25,000 new homes each year in this decade.
“There are many reasons why this is happening, but one of them is not developer intent,” Mr Fleskens said.
“Developers are trying really, really hard to get their land out as fast as possible, one, because they know they’ll make a lot of money doing it, but two, because they know they have a big item in the industry to try help fix this problem.
“I think there is some level of personal responsibility from developers to feel like they want to make an impact and help and fix this for future generations, and they just can’t … to the extent they want to.”
Echoing the concerns of industry, Mr Fleskens added that delays in connecting utilities was a major reason developers could not produce as many homes as was needed.
“Water Corp is really is screwing us, and Western Power is really screwing us,” he said.
“They are not performing, they haven’t for years, and we keep banging on our heads on the table, saying, ‘can you guys just do your job better? And they’re not
“They’re causing big issues with regards to our ability to roll out key urban expansion fringes.”
Mr Fleskens said in some areas, including Henley Brook and Brabham, a lack of sewer systems meant trucks needed to “pump the crap out of the middle of the suburb” several times a day.
“That’s what’s creating risk on future land development fringes, frontiers that would otherwise be solving the problem," he said.
“It’s a really important factor in our ability as an industry to try and pull together.
“Everyone’s trying really hard to fix this. There’s a couple of key players letting us all down.”
Herron Todd White managing director Brendon Ptolomey echoed this sentiment and added that layers of bureaucracy also hampered supply.
He said the state government was doing as much as it could to solve the housing crisis, but there was “a lot of red tape in the way”.
“We have three levels of government in this country; they all love making rules,” he said.
“That’s what their focus is, they sit around making rules all producing supply and essentially creating single residential or built form housing.”
He added that connecting people like WA Housing Minister John Carey with the people who made the rules was really difficult.
“That’s been probably my learning over the last couple of years in terms of watching this and logically thinking, ‘gee, something will snap here, and [the] Water Authority and Western Power will kick into gear and understand that they need to help support solve our supply problem'.
“But in fact, they just haven’t; they haven’t actually been able to handle the demand that’s come their way, similar with local councils.”
Response
Western Power and the Water Corporation have acknowledged the delays in connecting utilities to residential development sites, but say connection times are improving.
In a recent response to Business News, a Western Power spokesperson said the state-owned utility was “identifying more ways it could assist with the early release of land for residential construction”.
In addition, it said it was looking to collaborate with industry to improve land development timeframes.
“To help bring housing to market quicker, Western Power has already recruited additional staff, increased its outsourcing of electrical design and construction work, streamlined its processes, and introduced a risk-based quality assurance process to fast-track simple projects,” a spokesperson said.
A Water Corporation spokesperson said Water Corp had “strong relationships with the land development and building industries” and engaged regularly with developers to understand their future needs.
“To support planned developments, we have committed $125.3m from 2024-25 to 2026-27, to enable the delivery of 62,000 residential lots in Perth and 6,000 lots in regional WA,” a spokesperson said.
“We are also working collaboratively with industry and Department of Planning, Land and Heritage to understand and remove potential development constraints.”
