Development hits record levels in 2014: City of Melbourne
The City of Melbourne last week said the inner-city construction boom hit record levels in 2014 as the number of new dwellings completed within the municipality reached 6,300 – double the number completed in 2013 and three times the long-term average. Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the City of Melbourne’s Development Activity Monitor reveals a further 13,500 dwellings in 59 residential developments are under construction and due to be completed in the next three years. “This boom in development and construction boosts employment and the economy. An additional 76,000 jobs have been generated in the City of Melbourne in the past six years and our Gross Local Product has increased by $20 billion,” the Lord Mayor said. “As the fastest-growing municipality in Australia, we welcomed an additional 11,000 Melburnians in 2013 so it’s no surprise that residential development continues to flourish.”
In 2014, 6,319 new apartments were completed, which is triple the long-term average of 2,100 since the council began tracking residential development in 2002. Ninety-three proposed developments have town planning approval and will yield 21,000 dwellings when constructed. A further 92 developments have applied for permits totalling 26,000 dwellings. Ken Ong, Chair of Council’s Planning portfolio, said the council was working hard to plan for growth by ensuring the city has a diversity and quality in its housing stock, as well as infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing community. According to the council, an analysis of bedroom data suggests that of the dwellings in the active pipeline: Less than one per cent of new dwellings will be studio apartments; 43 per cent will be one bedroom dwellings; 52 per cent will be two-bedroom dwellings; and Almost five per cent will have three or more bedrooms. The Development Activity Monitor data shows that 329,500 square metres of office space is under construction in the City of Melbourne, while 28,000 square metres of retail space is also under construction, over half of which is smaller retail space that forms part of mixed-use residential developments. The Development Activity Monitor is released twice a year using data from the City of Melbourne permits register, valuations, Census of Land Use and Employment, and supplemented as required by other sources including, Cityscope, the Property Council of Australia and real estate agents.
Source: News Release, Urbanalyst, 23 December, 2014