Governing the City State - Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate ...

the release of residential land. As can be seen in Figure 28 below, by releasing around12,000 dwelling sites over the past three years (2007-08 – 2009-10), dwelling sites nearlyquadrupled the 3,300 sites released over the previous three years (2004-05 – 2006-07).Figure 27 - Release of Residential Dwelling Sites - 2003-04 to 2009-10Provided by the Department of Land and Property ServicesEven this increase has not been sufficient to quell demand for land. To provide a sustainedand comprehensive response to the problem of housing affordability, two key strategies havebeen put in place:• increase supply still further to an extent which would move supply sufficiently ahead ofdemand that an inventory of land ‘on the shelf’ is established, to place downwardpressure on land prices; and• introduction of targeted measures and programs, to support those in greatest housingstress.These measures were brought together under the umbrella of the Government’s AffordableHousing Action Plan (AHAP) first released in 2007 and expanded in a Second Phase in 2008.Pump Priming Supply – Establishing an Inventory of Land ‘On the Shelf’Under the AHAP, the Government’s land supply objective is to establish a sufficientinventory of land within the Developers’ and Builders’ pipelines (together also known as the‘Combined Land Servicing and Dwelling Construction Pipeline’) to address current demandand thereby discourage land price inflation and to “develop a supply strategy that is capableof responding reasonably quickly to changes in demand” 406 . To achieve these objectives, theAHAP identifies several initiatives, including:…adopt a four year developers’ pipeline (one year builders’ and three yeardevelopers’) maintaining inventory on the shelf at each stage of the pipeline toimprove responsiveness”; and406 ACT Government (2007) Affordable Housing Action Plan Progress Report. Canberra, p. 8.Sustainability, Housing Affordability and Transport: 306