Apartment and townhouse construction will need to step up if housing can keep pace with Geelong’s population growth. See the best and worst suburbs for building approvals.
An analysis of development approvals by suburban areas completed by Suburbtrends has identified the development hot spots and the NIMBY (not in my backyard) areas where the fewest new dwellings were being approved.
The data naturally reveals that Geelong’s significant urban growth areas, such as Charlemont, Armstrong Creek and Mt Duneed, had provided 78 per cent of new dwellings in the past five years.
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Newtown had the fewest approvals, with just 174 projects greenlit in five years.
The figures, which tally the number of private and public sector development approvals across suburban areas, reveals Geelong’s city planners have a long way to go to achieve a goal of creating half the region’s new homes from in-fill areas.
Development applications in Newtown represented just 4 per cent of about 4000 existing homes.
But also reflected less than 1 per cent of new homes built across the region.
Another 275 homes were approved across the eastern suburbs of Newcomb, Whittington, St Albans Park and Moolap.
Suburbtrends founder Kent Lardner said overall Geelong was well positioned compared to most other markets around the country, due to the size of the land market.
“The biggest question is how does that compare to your population growth?” he said.
“You’ve had such an exodus from Melbourne during and continuing on from Covid that a lot of the markets in and around Geelong have been very undersupplied for quite some time.”
An analysis of median prices relative to household income shows affordability in Geelong was in a relatively good position, with the exception of Newtown, where the higher cost to buy in the housing market represents 10.3 years according to household income.
Armstrong Creek, Charlemont and Mt Duneed are the centre of Geelong’s residential development. Picture: Alan Barber
Affordability was worse on Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast, with houses at Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff almost 19 times the areas’s annual household income, and shocking on along the Great Ocean Road.
“The only concern you’d have as a Geelong resident or a young Geelong homebuyer is the population growth and what impact that has on the demand and competition,” Mr Lardner said.
“But by in large because there is so much available land, we do have in the past five years around 12,000 new dwellings across (urban) Geelong alone.”
Norlane was the biggest target for public sector approvals. Picture: Alan Barber
Mr Lardner said planners needed to look to the rail corridors to deliver new townhouses, terraces and apartments, while the growth areas satisfied demand for freestanding houses.
“The air space along the rail corridors has always been sought after, but it’s probably more valuable today than it’s ever been.
“With car expenses going up and traffic and infrastructure limited and constrains for public amenities, I think the rail corridors are key.”
ABS data shows the Greater Geelong’s population growth rate was running at 2 per cent
The ramp-up of apartments led a 537 increase in central Geelong – an area that also includes South and East Geelong.
Property Council Geelong committee chair and Urbis Geleong director Nat Anson. Picture: Brad Fleet
Suburbtrends founder Kent Lardner
There were 299 public sector approvals in the past five years, including 220 in Norlane an, 33 in Corio and 23 and Geelong’s eastern suburbs.
Property Council Geelong committee chair and Urbis Geelong director Nat Anson said having development so stacked in favour of greenfields areas increased the cost to deliver infrastructure to support population growth.
“We’ve got something like 87 per cent detached dwellings, 2 per cent apartments and 11 per cent townhouses,” Mr Anson said.
“We need to focus on diversity of housing. That’s where it becomes critical. Infill is more likely going to be a townhouse and apartment development.”
Mr Anson said in-fill development would be aligned to key transport corridors, such as train lines and major roads, but also major shopping centres.
The South Geelong urban design framework will be a key plank to direct development along Geelong’s rail corridor.
“That’s why Pakington St and South Geelong UDFs are so critical towards future growth.”
Other rail precincts and areas of retail and commercial activity would be other development areas, he said.
While infill development was an efficient way of developing housing stock because it was supported by existing amenities, it was politically difficult at a local level due to community opposition.
“Most projects of any scale that are different and change the urban footprint are likely to get locked up in lengthy planning processes, including VCAT,” Mr Anson said.
“From a strategic standpoint, it’s about the market having confidence that if you invest in a location, that you’re able to deliver the development at an appropriate scale.
“We need to find ways to shift the community sentiment around urban infill otherwise there’s potentially a future where you continue to be reliant on greenfield development pressures to further extend (Geelong).”
Eleanor Creagh is a senior economist at PropTrack.
PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh said increasing the supply of the right housing in areas where people wanted to live was the only long-term sustainable way to aid affordability for homebuyers.
“Allowing for the efficient use of existing urban space helping to prevent urban sprawl and typically increases housing supply in areas where people want to live.
“We know with the current affordability challenges that we’re not building enough homes to sustain the level required with population growth. As a result, housing is expensive.
“If we’re serious about tackling housing supply, incentivising states and local government on zoning and achieving housing targets is probably a key facet to that
“So reducing planning impediments and restrictions on development at a local government level could certainly be a helpful step.,”
Ms Creagh said people already paid a premium to buy where they want to live, but it was a good way of framing the mismatch between demand and supply.