Canning mayor Patrick Hall concerned draft R-Code reforms could cause serious damage to city residents

Canning mayor Patrick Hall has warned locals proposed changes to WA’s residential design codes to boost housing could also come with serious environmental and financial risks.

The State Government revealed on July 2 it was considering major changes to the R-codes to enable more housing lots to be subdivided and reduce the timeframe for development approvals. It said the changes had the potential to allow more than 50,000 existing properties to be subdivided across the Perth metro area.

But Mr Hall announced at Tuesday’s council meeting that while housing supply could increase, it could also price young local families out of the market.

“I’m concerned for the future of our primary schools. I’m not an economist, but I foresee the property prices driven by high demand may increase exponentially in certain sought-after suburbs. Willetton is one such suburb, where the median price of a house has already exceeded the million dollars because of the popularity of its local high schools,” he said.

“Those prices are already driving young families out of the area. The evidence can be seen at Burrendah primary school, which is experiencing an alarming fall in pupil registration.

“The ability to suddenly subdivide thousands of lots could see a dramatic surge in prices as single older homes are demolished in the middle of a housing crisis to make way for two expensive building lots.”

The changes would abolish the average lot size requirement for land zoned R20 and below, allowing property owners on 700sqm blocks to subdivide rather than the current requirement of 900sqm.

The City of Canning has about 13,600 existing R20 lots. Under the current average requirement of 450sqm, the lots have a subdivision yield of 15,000 lots.

But under the proposed new 350sqm average, the potential yield increases to about 22,400, which Mr Hall said represents “upwards of 70,000” additional lots in Canning.

He said this could have concerning impacts on the city’s tree retention and general amenity.

“I’m really concerned about the possibility of wholesale loss of tree canopy on private property. This city and this council is working so hard to increase our tree canopy - we’re actually investing millions of dollars of your ratepayer funds to do so, yet these changes may have the potential to wipe out the gains we’ve already made,” he said.

“I’m also concerned that the potential addition of somewhere up to 10,000 new properties will cause significant parking issues in private suburban streets, and may dramatically add to the number of cars on local roads.”

Planning and Lands Minister John Carey said the changes are among the “most significant” reforms to the R-codes since they were introduced 30 years ago.

“The proposed changes enable tens of thousands of existing properties to be subdivided that couldn’t previously - providing more opportunities for housing in existing suburbs,” he said.