Collectively as a Coast, we are being told to rethink ‘traditional’ housing, and to consider more medium-density living to accommodate the ever-growing population equivalent of ‘two to three Auras’.
The latest market report by Direct Collective, Sunshine Coast The Future 2021, explores deeply the growth and housing data as our region is facing the most vital “protracted property upswing” of its type in the country.
Chief operating officer, Mal Cayley says locals would be pressed out and pushed to move away unless more medium-density homes are constructed for the predicted population.
Medium-density housing can vary from 25 to 80 dwellings per hectare, although generally sit around 30 and 40 dwellings/hectare, typically consisting of semi-attached and multi-unit housing and low-rise apartments.
Of the following 200,000 residents, only 70,000 are provided with detached housing in ‘greenfield’ estates, below the council’s current planning scheme, states the report. This is the community equivalent of ‘two-to-three Auras’ who would need to live in medium-density housing.
That leaves a harsh deficit of 130,000 people, who would instead need to live in in-fill development, which usually takes the form of duplexes, units and apartments or smaller land subdivisions in hinterland areas.
Mr Cayley said that implementing more housing options like townhouses and duplexes would facilitate older people to downsize but also create more affordable options across the generations.
As more jobs and opportunities are being created on the Coast, it doesn’t stop people from coming to live here. It’s predicted our population will grow by an extra 182,000 residents by 2041, but without housing options for fitting everyone in, Mr Cayley informed us it would be local people who are the ones squeezed out and moving away.
Heading demographer Bernard Salt said medium-density housing was not the same as high-rise and did not mean the Sunshine Coast would end up like the Gold Coast if it embraced in-fill development.
“Medium density does not mean high-rise towers as is often sighted in dramatic ways to try and prevent any sort of development.”
“There are 20 stages between low density and the kind of high-rise seen at Main Beach on the Gold Coast. There are all sorts of gradations in between.”