How AI could cut the red tape so we can build 1.2 million homes

To hit the Albanese government’s target of 1.2 million quality homes by June 2029, Australia must lift development approval rates by a third. AI could be part of the answer.

Australia must lift development approval rates by a third to hit federal Labor’s target of 1.2 million quality homes by June2029.

In the horrifying aftermath of California’s wildfires, Governor Gavin Newsom turned to AI and Australian technology to help revive scarred communities.

Surveying the colossal task of rebuilding 18,000 homes, Newsom admitted “the current pace of issuing permits locally is not meeting the magnitude of the challenge we face”. He enlisted Australia’s Archistar and offered its AI-powered assessment tool free of charge to local governments, thanks to funding from corporations and philanthropists.

Newsom insisted speed wouldn’t mean shortcuts: strong civic building standards, safety and sustainability still apply.

Newsom is not alone. Dozens of cities – from Singapore to San Francisco – are ditching clunky 20th-century development assessment regimes for AI-assisted digital solutions.

Early results are impressive – AI tools slash overall assessment times by half and the frustrating to-and-fro of early-stage assessment by 90 per cent. Honolulu trimmed the pre-screening of applications from six months to three days. Residential approval times plunged by 70 per cent.

Singapore halved its resubmissions merry-go-round and cut assessments from eight weeks to just two. In Europe, checks on complex rules for wind turbine projects fell from eight hours per technical hurdle to 20 minutes.

Some US cities are reaping another bonus: faster decisions mean property taxes flow sooner. Smart governments know that simply throwing tech at broken local systems is a false economy, which is why most are modernising both policy and process.

Former Property Council of Australia chief executive Peter Verwer.

Last month, Donald Trump established the Permitting Innovation Centre along with an action plan to fast-track big infrastructure projects. The UK government has launched 70 AI-enhanced development assessment pilot programs nationwide. Canada, Singapore, the EU, India and China are equally ambitious.

And it’s not just homes. AI is guiding the assessment of complex environmental and economic infrastructure projects. Europe has mandated that assessments of clean energy projects go digital by next year.

Finland aims to digitise all development projects with the help of AI within 12 months.

In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is searching for a productivity boost to reignite private investment. Australia will construct $334bn of homes, commercial buildings and civil infrastructure in the next year – all of which require approval by officials saddled with legacy decision-making tools.

Imagine the economic and social dividends from a modest 10 per cent improvement in processing speed. When last in power, the Labor government backed the bipartisan Development Assessment Forum and its leading practice framework. DAF’s red tape-slashing solutions, adopted by the ministers of the time, marked our last serious attempt at development assessment modernisation.

DAF is crying out for an AI makeover into a state-of-the-art “policy app” that streamlines assessments and boost productivity. An upgrade would also ensure planning rules catch up with – and lead – an exciting technology, rather than be hostage to it.

The genius of an AI-tuned DAF model is that it’s policy-agnostic. AI-enhanced systems don’t make planning policy. That’s the job of democratically elected governments, which should set crystal-clear objective rules and tests that can be transformed into code and algorithms.

Compliant projects can whiz through the system. For more complex proposals, AI helps thread the needle of multiple agencies, rules and policy objectives to a single point of decision-making. AI systems support expert judgment by keeping humans in charge on the few occasions where discretion is required. Ultimately, AI can deliver fast, reliable answers and the certainty investors crave.

To hit federal Labor’s target of 1.2 million quality homes by June 2029, Australia must lift development approval rates by a third.

Business as usual won’t cut it. This is a no-brainer for the Treasurer’s Productivity Roundtable, which could champion a national mission to deploy AI-powered assessment pilots built on an upgraded DAF framework.

These flagship pilots should span the full spectrum of development, from intractable environmental projects to homes, data centres, hospitals and granny flats.

The federal government could establish a competition policy-style fund to help states and territories undertake large-scale pilot studies. We’ve exported the tech that’s helping Californians rebuild their communities and lives. Time to apply it at home.

Peter Verwer is a former CEO of the Property Council of Australia and former chair of the Development Assessment Forum.

Originally published as How AI could cut the red tape so we can build 1.2 million homes