Around Australia, state governments are coming up with new planning pathways that make it more difficult for residents to block affordable housing projects.

Many of these pathways include removing community consultation from the equation entirely.

In Queensland, for example, community consultation is not required for social or affordable housing projects deemed important enough to be a State Facilitated Development.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s Development Facilitation Program prevents residents from blocking affordable housing through planning tribunals.

Older, wealthy residents over-represented

Urban planner Dorina Pojani said listening to the community was a good idea in theory, but had “completely backfired” in practice due to what she described as human selfishness.

The University of Queensland associate professor said in Australia’s community consultation sessions, NIMBYs — residents with the mentality “not in my backyard” — were over-represented.

Dorina Pojani says community consultation has “backfired” in certain situations. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)

She said people who turned up to these sessions tended to be home owners who feared new houses would lower their property prices and diminish their views and parking spaces.

Professor Pojani said community consultations over-represented the voices of older and wealthy people, and under-represented the voices of the poor, young, and foreign.

“There are haves and have-nots, and the reality is that community consultations end up being dominated by the haves,” Professor Pojani said.

“What we see is this model of public participation has completely backfired in Australia, and that’s why they have turned into bastions of NIMBYism.”

Negativity bias

Centre for Independent Studies chief economist Peter Tulip said community consultation suffered from a negativity bias.

He said nearby residents who would suffer “minor inconvenience” because of new housing had an incentive to participate in the community consultation process.

Peter Tulip says community consultations are slowing down new housing developments. (ABC News: John Gunn)

Mr Tulip said he believed most Australians were indifferent or OK with houses being built near them, but they were not incentivised to engage in such processes.

“It requires a certain personality to meddle in the affairs of your neighbour — essentially it attracts busybodies,” Mr Tulip said.

“It’s the busybodies who want to stick their nose into other people’s business and complain that have their voices listened to.”

He said community consultations also did not represent the vast majority of Australians who did not live in the area, but would indirectly benefit from increased housing supply.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane wants to build affordable houses on its property in Wakerley. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)

Residents want voices heard

However, some residents near development sites want more thorough community consultation processes.

Peter Bingham lives next door to a proposed affordable housing project in Wakerley with State Facilitated Development status.

Mr Bingham said he felt as though community members had not been given a say on what was happening in their own backyards.

Heather Hill, John Bramley, Peter Bingham and an anonymous resident oppose the Wakerley development in Brisbane. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)

“I don’t like it at all, it [the process] was totally underhanded and nobody was made aware of it,” Mr Bingham said.

“It was very clandestine, because they knew the outcry that they’d have.”

Queensland Greens MP Michael Berkman said State Facilitated Developments profited developers while removing the right of locals to have a say.

“What the State Facilitated Development process says to Queenslanders is that the government only wants to hear from the property developers making huge profits off the back of the housing crisis, and not ordinary people,” Mr Berkman said.

“State Facilitated Development powers exempt developers from the usual planning regulations, remove community consultation, and hide the approvals process behind closed doors, all without any requirement to build genuinely affordable housing or provide any real public benefit.”

What can be done?

Professor Pojani said it was not realistic, nor desirable, to scrap community consultation altogether from Australia’s planning system.

However, she said there were possible solutions Australia could explore.

Concerns community backlash will prolonge housing crisis

A debate over social housing in one of WA’s popular coastal cities has led to words including “slum” being scrawled over development signs.

For example, she said governments could create exemptions for certain projects such as social or affordable housing that met minimum planning scheme standards.

Queensland LNP MP Steve Minnikin said the government would conduct community consultation for all State Facilitated Developments, even though it was not legally required to.

Mr Minnikin said the previous government had tried to “ram through affordable housing” without consulting with the community.

“We have a comprehensive plan to boost housing across Queensland, however community engagement is still an important step to ensure we get the best outcome for local residents,” he said.