Principal @ Rothelowman | Architect Fellow, FRAIA. Chairperson @ Landgate | Non-Executive Director, GAICD
Taking cues from how WA is able to scale up workers from our north-west resources or infrastructure projects, here is an accelerator idea to deliver longer-term, permanent living options into Western Australia faster, cheaper, and more sustainably. By providing short-term housing solutions (say 10-15 years) as construction and key worker villages across the Perth metropolitan area, this will then increase the supply of long-term, permanent, and affordable housing, as it will allow for more trades to flow into the industry and therefore more permanent homes to be built. The villages could be provided on under-utilised crown land, or on land in areas such as around new Metronet train stations that currently don’t meet private development hurdle targets to develop now - allowing the land to be put to good use straight away, then sold off and developed by industry in the future when returns improve. This idea could work anywhere else across the country, as long migration opportunities for international key construction workers are also supported by the Federal Government. As a consequence, more workers/construction labor force in the WA market means more competitive pricing of projects, faster delivery of housing, and keeping construction costs down. Furthermore, this is a step closer to being able to move from the 16,000 dwellings currently being delivered annually to the required 25,000 to meet our Federal housing targets. Living in these homes is a short-term accommodation option that will accelerate the delivery of suitable permanent housing options for workers and their families to live in, as more homes are delivered into the WA market and our rental vacancy increases. Let's take advantage of under-utilized land and increase the supply of long-term, affordable housing options. Thank you to Kim Macdonald and The West Australian for the chat.
Perth property leader Kylee Schoonens - WA principal of national architecture firm Rothelowman - has called on the housing industry to follow the lead of the resource sector and create fly-in, fly-out-style worker camps in Perth to accommodate desperately-needed tradies.
Quyen Q.
10mo
There would be a lot of #laboureres and #tradies from neighbouring #islandnations, who I believe, would love to come to #WA and or #Australia to help #build the nations #houses. Of course those unfamiliar with Australian building standards would need to be supervised or trained accordingly. #WesternAustralia and Australia needs access to a #mobile #construction industry #workforce, particularly given the workforce is #aging as shown in the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics #Census.
Executive | Economist | Chair and Director
10moThis is a great idea, Kylie. Have you seen it done elsewhere?