Will many Canberrans take up changes to zoning laws allowing for dual occupancy on a single block?
By Penny Travers and Charlotte Gore
With more Canberra land owners able to split their blocks into dual-occupancy housing, the ACT government expects more homes will pop up in existing suburbs and prices will come down.
Under changes to the Territory Plan announced on Monday, a second dwelling can be built on any block of land more than 800 square metres in a residential zone 1 (RZ1) area, and given a separate title.
The second dwelling would be limited to 120 square metres in size and would have to adhere to existing rules around the percentage of the block covered by buildings, as well as landscaping and tree planting.
This is an increase on existing rules, which limited a second dwelling to 90 square metres and didn’t allow for subdivision.
But the cost of lease variation charges and development applications needed to divide a block can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in some suburbs.
Some community groups doubt the changes will have much impact on housing supply and prices in the national capital, and say more should have been done to address the “missing middle”.
Trees, site layout likely to restrict some subdivision
Tuggeranong Community Council chair Glenys Patulny wonders how many people will be able to build dual occupancies, due to the impact on existing trees. (ABC News: Toby Hunt)
There are more than 11,000 blocks in the Belconnen area that would be eligible for dual-occupancy under the changes.
But Lachlan Butler from the Belconnen Community Council said he would be “very surprised” if many home owners chose to subdivide.
“With a lot of the older homes, there’s poor site layout and design, where, realistically, if you wanted to add another block or a garage you’re having to knock it down,” he said.
“Not everyone wants to become a developer and build a house out the back of their block and sell it off.
“I don’t think there are that many people that will want to push forward with a dual occupancy.”
Immediate past national president of the Australian Institute of Architects Shannon Battison said the rules around a dwelling needing to face and have driveway access to the street would also need to be adjusted.
Shannon Battison of the Australian Institute of Architects says rules about the placement of driveways in dual-occupancy properties should be addressed.(ABC News: Penny Travers)
“[The rules] mean you end up with this long driveway down one side, where if we allowed interpretive and creative thinking about how we provide car parking I think that we can get around often this need for a really huge driveway down the block,” Ms Battison said.
“It opens it up to more people if they do allow dual titling because often people need to borrow against that build, whereas if you’re going to have to keep it you can only sell the two together there’s no possibility to build something nice for yourself to move down into and then sell the front of the block.”
In Tuggeranong, some 14,000 blocks would be eligible for subdivision.
And while Tuggeranong Community Council chair Glenys Patulny supported more dual occupancies “in principle”, she wondered how many people would actually be able to build due to the impact on existing trees.
“We don’t want to lose our beautiful canopy cover, the shading, and we need to keep that in mind if we do something like this,” she said.
“It’s all very well to say we’re not going to knock down any trees, but existing suburbs have got lots of trees on them.”
Changing RZ1 to RZ2 would allow more infill
Greater Canberra convenor Howard Maclean says he would have liked to have seen RZ1 changed to RZ2 to allow more townhouses and terraces to be built.(ABC News: Greg Nelson)
Howard Maclean, convenor of community advocacy group Greater Canberra, sees the costs involved as a major obstacle for people taking up the zoning change.
“We are really concerned that the combination of imposing the full lease-variation charge — as if it was a full house — on such a small dwelling, combined with the costs of having to go through a development application, unit titling and everything else, will effectively mean that no one will end up doing this,” he said.
“We’ve done this big song and dance about zoning reform, while having a zoning policy that actually may not deliver much housing at all.”
Mr. Maclean said he would have liked to have seen RZ1 changed to RZ2 to address the “missing middle” by allowing more townhouses and terraces to be built.
“Under these new rules, if you have a 1,200-square-metre block, you can have one very large house and then one small 120-square-metre house,” he said.
“If we’d gone to RZ2 you would have been allowed to have up to three townhouses of roughly equal size on that.
“You don’t end up with this weird division between having very large houses and then very small, almost enhanced granny flat duplexes that are fundamentally unequal.”
Mr Maclean said rezoning RZ2 to RZ3 should also have been included in the updates to the Territory Plan, “which would have enabled much more housing in those zones via low-rise apartment blocks of up to three storeys”.
“We think that that’s a very commonsense change, which should be supported,” he said.
“We should [also] be looking at how we can make better use of more medium to high density in areas like RZ2 and RZ3 immediately around local shops.”
