A decades-long absence of medium-density homes in suburban Adelaide\u2019s housing market \u2013 dubbed \u201cthe missing middle\u201d \u2013 will be plugged by a new initiative, the state government says. <\/p>\n
Planning Minister Nick Champion is set to announce a move to \u201cbring back missing middle housing\u201d, which he defines as low-rise, medium-density home types, such as duplexes, manor homes and small apartment buildings.<\/p>\n
Under the initiative, \u201cmissing middle\u201d housing-types would be added to a government \u201cpattern book\u201d of pre-approved designs bypassing regular planning processes \u2013 thereby incentivising developers to build more medium-density homes.<\/p>\n
The pattern book is scheduled to be ready to use before the year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
Peter Koulizos, an adjunct senior fellow at Adelaide University\u2019s Australian Centre for Housing Research, said the state\u2019s planning laws have prohibited missing middle housing types in recent decades. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe missing middle is what we\u2019ve been missing for a few decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe choice was either something really small or very close to the city, or something bigger but a long way out of the city. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow (following the new initiative), you can have something mid-size, say two or three bedrooms, in the inner or middle-ring suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Koulizos said manor houses \u2013 properties that looked like mansions but contained multiple dwellings \u2013 had not been seen in Adelaide for \u201cmany, many years\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen it in Melbourne. It looks like a mansion, but when you look at the letterbox, there\u2019s lots of little letterboxes rather than just the one, and it works really well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can blend into the character of the area because from the front it looks like one building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Koulizos said small apartment blocks had not been built in South Australia recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you travel the suburbs, you\u2019ll see the walk-up flats of the 60s and 70s. The cream brick ones, there might be groups of four or six or eight, single-storey, double-storey,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen we stopped building those, and people, if they wanted a new place, went further out where the city meets the country. What I would call affordable housing of the 60s and 70s, we haven\u2019t built that up until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re going back to the future.\u201d <\/p>\n
The government said the homes \u2013 sized between a single detached house and a large apartment tower \u2013 would provide alternative housing options for people who did not want to to live in a high-rise apartment building or an outer growth area. <\/p>\n