Central Coast Council is to be congratulated on the presentation of the draft Strategic Housing Strategy for comment.
This is the finest compilation of Central Coast data that I have seen – easy to follow, well-organised and as comprehensive as one could wish for, in a publication only using secondary sources.
It will be a most useful reference work for some time to come.
Unfortunately, the Housing Strategy that derives from all the analysis is almost completely useless.
It consists almost entirely of platitudes, wish lists and future conjectures that don’t amount to a strategy of any sort.
The kindest thing that can be said of it is that it would be a good basis for a housing strategy, if ever anybody got around to preparing one.
To take an obvious example, population projections suggest an older population that will need an increased supply of smaller, affordable units in particular locations suitable for less-mobile people.
Yet, the data shows that small, affordable units are decreasing in number.
This would suggest that whatever is being done now is not fit-for-purpose as a continuing practice.
Nevertheless, the best that the Strategy can suggest is that regulations will provide the opportunity for a change in shelter output.
As anybody can see, the present regulations provide all the opportunity that could ever be required, but the market does not respond to opportunities: the market responds to profit motivation.
If a pious hope that things will change is the best that a Strategy can offer, it doesn’t amount to much.
A Strategy is supposed to formulate targets and to suggest mechanisms for reaching those targets.
In turn, this allows us to prepare practical plans and to institute programs that will achieve the desired results.
A proper Strategy is set out in a form that leads logically to the next steps in the process: what we have instead is a scatter-gun approach that touches on a variety of issues and suggestions, without ranking them in any hierarchy, without mapping out a forward path and without demonstrating how all the elements of the Strategy interact with one another.
Much of what is said is just overblown rhetoric and pseudo-comprehensive statements about matters the Council cannot control but would like to see happen in an ideal world, if only somebody else would take the necessary action.
Incidentally, pretty much the same can be said for the draft Street Design Manual which is also open for comments.
It is obvious that an enormous effort has gone into preparing this manual, but the impact it will have is highly questionable.
There is great detail about how various different kinds of streets could be designed, but most of it is just re-stating the bleeding obvious, and there is no suggestion as to how any of this could be applied in practice.
If present street designs are unsatisfactory (and I shouldn’t think that needed to be pointed out to anybody), there has to be some process for bringing about change.
Any such process is conspicuous by its absence from this document: I give it an A for effort and an F for substance.
Email, Mar 25
Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy