James Limnios: Increasing multi-unit dwellings in Perth is the only way to solve the housing crisis

The recent announcement by the State Government to streamline planning and development around 10 train stations to create an additional 35,000 homes in Perth is very welcome. This logic should also be applied to main arterial roads within a 15 kilometre radius of the city. For someone who has championed urban infill as a way of solving our housing crisis as well as community wellbeing for many years , this government announcement was music to my ears. I strongly believe that this renewed focus by the State Government on urban infill to create much needed housing in Perth should be congratulated and encouraged by everyone in our community. However, there is there is still a long way to go in creating an effective policy framework that can unleash the full potential of urban infill to provide the new homes we desperately need to fix our entrenched housing crisis. There are a number of issues that have significantly slowed down the development of multi-unit developments in Perth over the last decade ranging from government red tape — including the lack of a “can do” attitude from bureaucracy, which then stumbles into a lack of planning co-ordination between levels of government. Banks make it very difficult to finance development efficiently in a cost appropriate manner. On the surface they all say we are here to support housing and development yet when the “credit team” gets its hands on the file, they look at why they will not support a project and if they do how much of an interest margin can they add which often makes a project unviable. These issues combined means many projects fail before they start. If all these stakeholders were serious, they would back all reasonable projects that had the underlying requirements of infill housing supply and help get them off the ground. This is much more prevalent for access to finance especially for smaller boutique developers. These road blocks need to be quickly removed to stop the ongoing famine of new infill housing developments in the established housing areas of Perth. The current famine in multi-unit homes in Perth has been highlighted in the inner-city suburbs by new ABS building approval data figures for small area locations in the city. Unfortunately, in prime inner-city locations of Perth where urban infill developments should now be booming during the current housing crisis, only a fraction of higher density homes are being approved compared to a decade ago. This famine of multi-unit housing options in the current Perth housing market is even more shocking when you look at the overall figures for the metropolitan area. Back in the September 2015 quarter, there were 2002 multi-unit dwellings approved in Perth or around half the number of houses at 4,351. Fast forward ten years later, and there were only 639 multi dwelling homes approved in Perth or only 13 per cent of the total 4,786 homes including houses, approved during the same period. This is a pitiful figure compared to eastern states cities like Melbourne, where during the September 2025 quarter multi-unit dwelling accounted for nearly half (5,237) of the 11,800 homes approved during this three-month period. The reality is that we will only solve the housing crisis in Perth if we radically increase the number of multi-unit dwellings in inner city suburbs. Relying on urban sprawl for the supply of new homes is no longer an option as we are rapidly exhausting the supply of available building land in the outer suburbs where the majority of new houses are currently being constructed in Perth. This growing shortage of building land has been underlined recently by Research4 Director Colin Keane who highlighted that new land supply pipeline in Perth was under significant pressure with about half of Perth predicted to run out of land zoned for homes in as little as four years. The financial and major environmental cost of urban sprawl is also becoming unsustainable as Perth, with a population of just over two million people, is now rivalling the geographic size of London. We now need to a develop and comprehensive action plan to reverse the chronic undersupply of multi-unit homes in Perth if we are to avoid turning the current housing shortage into an even greater housing disaster. That is why I am strongly recommending that the State Government urgently needs to set up a task force involving the private sector who understand these problems at the grassroots level, and government and Federal government representatives to determine sensible measures to help fast track new, much-needed residential developments within a 15 kilometre radius of the Perth CBD. I am more than happy to volunteer my time to make this task force a success based on my long-standing experience in the real estate services and the development of successful urban infill projects. James Limnios is managing director of Limnios Property Group