By Simon Clark, Director, Sustainable Homes Melbourne (SHM)

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I write this with equal parts respect and frustration.

Respect - because I know the complexity of your work, the genuine public good you’re charged to protect, and the weight of the decisions you make.

Frustration - because the system we all operate in is failing the very people it’s meant to serve. It is failing families who need homes. It is failing builders and designers who are trying to lift standards. And it is failing councils and planners, who are drowning in process without the tools to deliver timely, confident outcomes.

We are on the same side: we all want safe, well-designed, value-adding sustainable homes in neighbourhoods that compliment the streetscape.

The Numbers We Can’t Ignore

In May 2025, Australia recorded its lowest monthly building approvals in 13 years. We aim for roughly 240,000 homes a year to hit the national target; last calendar year we built around 160,000 and about 20,000 of those were knockdown-rebuilds. 

We’re ~100,000 homes short, with a population edging toward 28 million (up from ~20 million two decades ago)… and we were actually approving more homes back then.

And here’s one that says it all: in the mid-1980s, a town planner could approve around 50 homes a year. Today, it’s closer to nine.

We talk about a “productivity crisis.” There it is, in a single stat.

This Isn’t About Builders Cutting Corners

At SHM - and across our network of peers in the Sustainable Builders Alliance - we exceed minimum standards: 140 mm stud walls, double the typical insulation, vapour-permeable building fabrics, high-performance glazing, and carefully detailed building envelopes. None of this buys any leeway in the current system. Planning doesn’t recognise it. Building surveyors don’t reward it. There’s no mechanism to signal “this applicant consistently delivers higher-performing homes; prioritise, trust, or streamline accordingly.” We’re all treated identically-whether we’re lifting the bar or scraping under it.

This is fine, so long as the system is functional, which it is not.

One Site, Two Processes, Zero Clarity

Let me describe the merry-go-round we’ve been stuck on repeatedly.

• Planning triggers (often overlays - heritage, environmental significance, flooding) send us to the planning department.
• We work through RFIs, consultation, and eventually we get approval.
• Lo & behold - We’re informed that the planning department has not assessed the design against Rescode. Back the design goes to council via a separate “Report & Consent” (site coverage, setbacks, overlooking, overshadowing) process to the building department - even when the same council has just assessed the same drawings. 

Change a roof form to satisfy Report & Consent? Back to the planning department. 

Adjust a wall to satisfy planning? Back to Report & Consent. 

It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of taking one step forward and two steps back.

The 2023 amendment VC243 tried to speed things up by removing planning permit triggers for single dwellings on lots over 300 m² (down from 400 m²). In practice, on smaller inner-city blocks - often surrounded by pre-ResCode buildings (making it incredibly difficult or impossible to achieve strict compliance), so you still end up in Report & Consent. Worse, we’ve seen planning permits issued with small print: “Not assessed against ResCode.” Clients saw “permit granted” and rightly assumed they were good to build. Our building surveyor then halted the project until ResCode consents were obtained - months lost, while costs climb and trust in government is eroded.

For one signed contract, those delays burned 2–3 months. Our internal cost of an unproductive, delayed project is about $20,000 per month. That’s $60,000 vaporised - not counting the family living through it or the council team fielding angry calls from a builder who also doesn’t want to be making angry calls.

Red Tape Without Real-World Outcomes

Here’s a typical sequence we’ve incurred recently.

• RFI timing: Assessments run the full statutory clock, an RFI lands right before a Planner takes leave, and the clock restarts on council assessment.
• Duplicate or questionable requirements: An arborist report requested despite no significant trees on the property - two months gone.
• Flooding concerns (and no clarity of what those concerns are) for a home on top of a hill - six weeks of back-and-forth before commonsense prevailed.
• On-site regulation stack: For a single brick wall on boundary we’ve been required to secure Reg 116, a road-closure permit, protection works to council, and asset protection - four separate processes for one engineer-designed compliant wall. Add seven traffic management plans. Add $2,000 in fines for a truck loading in a laneway for 30 minutes and an excavator’s tail in the dog-leg of a nearly unused lane while considerate tradespeople are actively working and communicating with the neighbours. Could we have summoned traffic control at $1,900 with uncertain timing? Maybe. Should the system be set up to default to that? No.

Let me be crystal clear: none of this has proven to deliver better built outcomes. We’re now advising clients to engage independent building inspectors in addition to the registered building surveyor - because Australia’s (especially Victoria’s) system of compliance is heavy on paperwork and light on real-world results. We’re policing paperwork opposed to lived outcomes.

When the System Works, It’s Brilliant

Our favourite project of 2024 - two 150 year old Fitzroy terraces homes sailed through planning. A Town Planner was engaged for submission, the brief was tight, the assessment was quick, the result was excellent. Planning success like this is rare but it can be done.

Just up the road however, a simpler single home has been stuck for years - same municipality, different team, same system. Our experience with council planners is too often slow and inconsistent. The system encourages slowness, process, and risk aversion. This all incentivises people to do the wrong thing avoiding these painful encounters with council and the costs that come with it. 

A Builder’s Plea: Assess Once, Clearly, and End-to-End

If any planning trigger exists on a property, assess the entire design end-to-end once - including ResCode and any Report & Consent matters. Issue a single, binding, “Ready-to-Build” decision (or a clearly consolidated set of changes) rather than fragmenting approvals across two departments. The decision should say either:

• Approved - Ready to Build (subject to standard conditions), or
• Not Approved - Here’s Exactly What to Change (one list, one pathway, one final check).

That’s it. No loop-backs. No “we approved the heritage bit but not the overshadowing; try another queue.” One door in, one decision out.

Practical Reforms Needed

1. One-Stop Assessment (“Ready-to-Build” certificate). If planning is triggered, planning owns coordination with building regulations/ResCode - no hand-offs to a separate departmental process.
2. Performance-Based Fast-Lanes. Recognise proven high-performance builders/designers (measured by compliance history and built outcomes) with a priority or streamlined pathway. Reward better practice; don’t punish it.
3. Standardised Templates & Checklists. Statewide RFI templates, ResCode variations, and traffic management triggers.
4. Digital Workflow With Accountability. A shared portal logging who requested what, when, and why - visible to applicant, planner, and surveyor. Sunlight fixes ambiguity.
5. Resource the Front Line. More planners, better training, and clearer delegation. Give assessors permission to make performance-based calls confidently.
6. Focus Onsite Oversight Where It Matters. Shift marginal paperwork effort into meaningful site inspections at critical stages. This is a whole reorganizing of the system that will produce greater real-world outcomes.

What Builders Owe You

We’re not asking for a free ride. Builders owe the system clean drawings, honest siting, accurate overshadowing, neighbour respect, and safe sites. We owe councils proactive communication, prompt RFI responses, and adherence to conditions. When we fall short, hold us to account.

But when we do the right thing - and especially when we aim higher than minimums - please meet us with a process that can keep up.

The Cost of Standing Still

Every extra month of delay on a signed project is real money lost: for us (~$20,000/month of capacity stranded), for clients (finance, rent, life plans), and for the economy (lost wages, lost materials throughput, lost trades continuity). Multiply that across tens of thousands of homes and you glimpse the scale of the self-inflicted wound and productivity crisis.

We do not have a shortage of people who care. We have a shortage of clear, integrated decisions.

My Promise - and My Ask

My promise: SHM will keep building better than code, keep educating clients, keep submitting thorough applications, and keep engaging planners early - especially on sensitive sites. We’ll keep rattling cages when the process slips, because my duty of care is to our clients, our team’s livelihoods, and our city’s housing future.

My ask: Assess once. Decide once. Give us a single, end-to-end planning + ResCode verdict we can build from. Replace red tape with real safeguards: more site-time where it counts, less desk-time where it doesn’t.

Australia can hit its housing goals and lift the quality of housing outcomes, simultaneously. But not with a system that makes one council sign off on heritage in May and another desk blocks sunlight in September on the same drawings.

Please let us build good homes. And please, hold us to account in ways that actually make the homes we build better for those that live in them.

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