Could privatised planning system fix Vic housing crisis?

A top property finance company is calling for Victoria’s planning system to be privatised to keep home ownership dreams alive and boost rentals supply.

Victoria’s housing crisis is being inflamed by a broken planning system that is more about “arse covering” than decision-making, a major property finance company says.

In an extraordinary attack, managing director of Salvest Anthony Ferraro said delays and costs associated with commercial and residential developments were killing home ownership dreams and the supply of rentals in the market.

Mr Ferraro said the time had come to privatise the permit application system – while keeping the same checks and balances in place – to get experts in one room and decisions made in hours or days rather than months.

“The calibre of people at council simply have no idea what they’re doing,” he said.

“The left hand and the right hand don’t know what they’re doing. It’s a mess. No one will make a decision because they are all arse covering.

“We are a country town in many ways, rather than a global thinker.”

The Andrews government has recently flagged taking planning controls off councils, in a bid to boost density of housing in established areas.

Mr Ferraro says Victoria’s planning permit application system should be privatised to speed up decision-making.

But Mr Ferraro said state-controlled precinct structure plans were also stalling, and that a takeover would be a “disaster”.

“We are unable to fund close to a billion dollars worth of projects because we have been waiting 12 months or more for PSP-approval on sites,” he said.

Instead, a privatised model run by skilled and experienced planners and architects should be created to deal with developers in a one-stop shop.

“It’s not a free for all, there’d be absolutely protocols and governance in place,” he said.

“You’ve still got to go through that process. I’m not saying allow developers to be cavalier.”

Victoria’s planning scheme is still based on lifestyles and block sizes that were popular half a century ago, Mr Ferraro said, and that despite massive migration permit approvals had not kept pace.

At the same time, massive new costs have hit developers and builders caused by inflation and a public sector building blitz soaking up resources and skills.

This has caused emotional and financial trauma among developers, but was also impacting the consumer who can’t find a home, he said.

“There’s people living in tents, there’s people living in cars, this is just real,” he said.

“Working class people having to live in cars, in tents, it’s a disgrace. The amount of land that this country’s got with only 26 million people …

“Everyone’s lost trust, that’s the biggest problem.”