This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
MORE than 80% of land parcels in Australia’s major urban areas are zoned for residential primary use, according to an inaugural report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while Perth has seen most of its new dwellings approved within master-planned tracts.
According to the first issue of Land and Housing Supply Indicators, transition and master plan zoning was the second-most common at 5.3%, followed by primary production (3.8%).
Community and public use-zoned parcels account for 2.0%, followed by mixed use/centre (1.9%), industrial (1.6%), conservation/limited use (1.6%), and business/commercial (1.5%), and then special use N.E.S (1.1%) and infrastructure/utilities (0.6%).
Dwelling approvals by zoning classification saw 59.5% approved on residential parcels, followed by 22.5% in transition/masterplan land, and then 9.3% in mixed use/centre and 4.4% in business/commercial.
In Sydney, more than 80% of dwelling approvals were on residential zoned land, followed by Adelaide (76.1%) and Hobart (75.9%), while Brisbane was just above the average and Melbourne just below.
The highest proportion of dwelling approvals in Perth took place on transition/masterplan-zoned land (41.7%), while in Darwin, just under half of dwellings were on land zoned “other” than residential, transition/masterplan and mixed use/centre. Canberra had nearly 41% of dwelling approved on “other” land.
Transition/masterplan zoned land most commonly accommodated detached new housing, and mixed use and “other” zoned land accommodated significantly more attached dwellings, according to the ABS.
About one-third of all dwellings approved were between 200 and 400 sqm. Next was under 200 sqm (29.3%), 400 to 600 sqm (20.6% and 600 to 800 (8.5%). Just 2.8% were 800 to 1,000 sqm, 4.2% were 1,000 to 10,000 sqm, and 1.3% more than 10,000 sqm.
Just under 80% of parcels are smaller than 1,000 sqm, with the most common size range at 600 to 800 sqm (30.2%), followed by 400 to 600 sqm (24.5%).
Parcels spanning 1,000 to 10,000 sqm make up 13.7%. Next is 200 to 400 sqm (11.9%), 800 to 1,000 sqm (10.6%), 10,000 sqm and above (6.0%), and parcels less than 200 sqm are the least common (3.1%).
Melbourne clearly has the most land parcels of the capital cities, with over 1.5 million, followed by Sydney with 1.23 million, and then Brisbane (809,170), Perth (732,106) and Adelaide (522,760).
Canberra-Queanbeyan has 134,684, Hobart 84,251 and Darwin 36,117.
Parcels under 200 sqm were most prevalent in the major cities Melbourne (5.7%) and Sydney (5.3%), with a gap before Adelaide in third (2.7%). Two-thirds of parcels in Darwin (66.8%) are larger than 800 sqm, with Canberra-Queanbeyan (46.1%) and Hobart (40.8%) also having a high proportion of parcels in this range.
Sydney is the only city in which parcels of 400 to 600 sqm are the most prevalent, at 30.3%, with 600 to 800 sqm at 25.8%. In Melbourne, they account for 26.9% and 29.5% respectively. Parcels in the 600 to 800 sqm bracket are most prevalent all other capitals except Darwin, where 37% of parcels are 800 to 1,000 sqm.
Residential-zoned parcels accounted for 93.7% of parcels in Canberra-Queanbeyan. Perth had the lowest rate, at 71.1%, with a higher proportion of transition/masterplan zoning (16.3%) than anywhere else. Melbourne was next with 8.6%, while Sydney, Hobart and Canberra-Queanbeyan had a negligible amount.
