Of course housing affordability is an issue and must be addressed, but not at the expense of paving over the entire countryside. What is at issue here is unsustainable population growth with Melbourne growing by nearly 70,000 a year. 35,000 new houses? Great, that will accommodate about 18 months worth of population growth, assuming three people per household, and that's a bit more than average household size. So if we release 35,000 new house sites every 18 months, before long you will have paved over all the arable land within coo-ee of Melbourne. And if you're living 100 kms out, how do you get to work once oil prices start their inexorable rise in three years time? It's time we recognised limits and stabilised our population numbers before we pave over every green wedge and market garden in the immediate region.

The choice is not between urban sprawl and higher density. It is between growth in the capital and growth in provincial cities. The UK has only 12.5 per cent of its population in London. Victoria has more than 70 per cent of its in Melbourne.

The Baillieu government hasn’t got a clue. It is treating green wedge land as if it is no more than future urban land waiting in a queue.

The Board of Works established Melbourne’s urban growth boundary 40 years ago when it set up the green wedges and development corridors for the metropolitan area. The original review took five years, beginning with Dick Hamer’s letter of 3 May, 1966, including a comprehensive assessment of environmental, economic and social needs and culminating in the release of Planning Policies for the Melbourne Metropolitan Region on 29 November, 1971, by the Board of Works.

The green wedges were meant to be permanent. As the Liberal Party itself said 42 years ago, ‘We believe that any future growth of the metropolis should be of a “corridor” pattern, and that “green wedges” of open space, parkland and recreation areas should be permanently preserved between such corridors, especially along the river valleys, readily accessible to all.’ (‘Architects challenge party leaders’, The Age, 23/5/1970).

The Board of Works subsequently set aside 2,670 square kilometres for green wedges and 2,359 square kilometres as urban land. Mr J. A. Hepburn, the chief planner for the Board of Works, said, ‘All future development will be in corridors…. There will be no urban development in the green wedges – that is the basis of the whole policy.’ (‘Nature-lovers must feel happy’, 30/11/1971, The Sun).

Instead of ‘permanently’ and ‘no urban development’ we are to have large chunks slashed out for asphalt and concrete every two years. The Baillieu government is destroying Dick Hamer’s legacy. Melbourne’s planning history us at http://melbourneurbanist.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/what-should-we-do-about-melbourne/.

If all these planners were worth having, instead of trying to dictate how others must live, to suit some ivory tower dream, they would be organising our cities, & regions to suit how the population want to live.

It becomes more obvious every day, that these elites are not working for the good of the community, but for the good of the elites. They are not interested in trying to provide what people want, just in herding the population out of their way, at least cost in effort.

We spent squillions a few decades back, when the current fad of planners was decentralisation. Albury/Wodonga & Orange were a couple chosen by these twits, & look at them now. Meanwhile other places have grown greatly, when there was some reason for them to grow.

Well now is the chance. People are voting with their feet. Develop business, industry & government employment where people want to live & you've got decentralisation done for you.

I guess it's too simple for academics.

Mr Elliott quotes a sentence from Prof Buxton and goes on to say
"The brilliant Professor Buxton's slim grasp on household economics 101 is a bit of a worry"

Mr Elliott doesn't quote any more of Prof Buxton's article but I think it's a pretty good guess that it goes on to make it clear that it refers to the total costs to the community, not just the costs to the individual home buyer.

And if Mr Elliott doesn't understand the remainder of Prof Buxton's article, why doesn't he quote the rest of it so that we may see for ourselves?

How can a person be so dim-witted as to read an article by a Professor, think it means something which is completely idiotic, and not realise that, just possibly, he has missed the point?

Various govts have attacked housing affordability, with tax charges and patently puerile policy paradigms that forced the price of basic housing up.
They also forced the price of housing up by rationing the release of rezoned urban land.
Further compounded the problem with regressive tax measures that simply cascaded and added exponentially to the cost.
They then exacerbated the problem by increasing emigration well beyond the capacity of infrastructure and or roll out to cope.
Then they allowed green advocates to further compound the problems, by adopting green density housing paradigms, all while ignoring the fact that city dwellers produce 2.5 times the Co2 emission of their country cousins.
Fortunately, we now have the NBN roll out, which will assist in decentralisation and or developing the regions, and returning housing affordability.
Finally, very rapid rail would allow the decentralisation so badly needed for now numerous reason, to proceed.
Look, smart govts would resume land for very rapid rail corridors. Then rezone some of that land as new urban.
Underground systems would often be cheaper than resuming land in already densely developed areas.
As the rail projects rolled out, lands sales would all but pay for the rail roll out.
Punitive capital gains tax on all undeveloped recently rezoned urban land would prevent speculators and land banking barons from limiting progressive progress back to housing affordability.
Land tax on all undeveloped urban land, would fund the needed infrastructure roll outs, as would repealing negative gearing, which is removing over 5 billion PA from revenue.
Certainly, we shouldn't simply pave over our most arable land, which by the way also just happens to be coastal and or, flood plains.
While we are at it, instead of power lines that can be blown or burnt down, we should instead pipe NG to the new developments, and use individual ceramic fuel cells to provide power.
Some of the NG could also be supplemented by biogas produced onsite, by digested waste. Much better than sending it to landfill or primitive sewage treatment plants, which simply send methane skywards, where it further compounds global warming!
Rhrosty.

I live in Albury-Wodonga and absoluely love it. Building a new house too which i could afford on a 700sq metre block.