Sensational-Adelaide.com

Norman wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 16, 2023 3:10 pm

I would give some of the blame for this to the developers. Instead of focusing on the corridors (except for Churchill Road and Prospect Road), developers have been picking the low-lying fruit, subdividing old post-war houses, and building two or three new houses. This has caused a lot of issues with local communities who see this as poor densification and the destruction of the tree canopy, all which are valid points.

If the infill focus can be brought onto the corridors rather than general suburbia, which is what the 30-year plan intended in the first place, we might get some better outcomes.

Building industry crisis deepens with yet another firm placed into liquidation leaving a string of custom-home builders in the lurch
Wedgewood Constructions latest firm to fall

Adelaide building company placed into liquidation on Sunday
Follows collapse of Lloyd Group and Porter Davis homes
By OLIVIA DAY and AIDAN WONDRACZ FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

PUBLISHED: 17:39 AEST, 4 April 2023 | UPDATED: 19:13 AEST, 4 April 2023

Yet another construction company has gone into administration as Australia's building crisis deepens, leaving dozens of homes unfinished.

Wedgewood Constructions, based in Magill in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, was placed into liquidation on Sunday after 14 years in the business.

The South Australian company had specialised in custom-home builds, additions and heritage building works before it collapsed this week.

The development comes just days after the Lloyd Group, a civil design and construction group, went into voluntary administration with about 59 projects still uncompleted, including 30 in NSW and 29 in Victoria on Friday.

Building giant Porter Davis Homes also went into liquidation with more than 1,500 projects still to be completed this week.

Industry leaders have warned financial woes will see the building industry crisis worsen amid repeated interest rate rises and skyrocketing material costs.

Wedgewood liquidator Simon Miller said only four homes were left unfinished, with the family firm employing only a handful of workers and creditors.

'It's a relatively small family business, it had family members working in it, but unfortunately it has gone the way of many of the other builders with high material costs and fixed price contracts - so it has been a very tough game to be in for some time,' he told The Advertiser.

Across Australia, there were 549 administrations and liquidations in March alone, a jump of 23 per cent when compared to last year.

Just 11 of these companies were based in South Australia, with insolvencies relatively low when compared to collapses in states on the east coast.

The Lloyd Group appointed Deloitte Turnaround & Restructuring partners Sam Marsden, Sal Algeri, Jason Tracy and Tim Norman as voluntary administrators of six companies that make up the Lloyd group.

Starting off as a family-owned business from Melbourne's south-east in 1979, the company has since expanded to employ about 200 people across offices in Geelong, Sydney and Brisbane.

One of the company's 30 uncompleted jobs in NSW was constructing the Willowdale Sports Pavilion near the growing community of Leppington adjacent to the proposed Western Sydney Airport.

It was also commissioned by Blacktown City Council to construct a sports facility at Schofields in north-west Sydney.

Administrators will urgently assess the company's finances across its numerous projects to determine its financial situation.

'From the beginning, our culture of integrity, teamwork, excellence and innovation has been the cornerstone of our business,' Lloyd Group's website reads.

Victoria-based Porter Davis, which has been operating for more than 20 years and made $256million in revenue as recently as 2021, also went into liquidation on Friday.

The company is the 13th biggest home builder in the country and constructed 1,734 homes in the 2020-21 financial year.

The firm left more than 1,500 homes under construction in Melbourne, another 200 in Queensland and another 779 projects were due to begin soon.

Disgruntled tradesman are suspected of being behind a fireball attack on a Porter Davis home in an act of pay-back over unpaid work.

Footage of the home under construction in the Riverfield new build development in Clyde, on Melbourne's south-east outskirts, showed the near-finished home ablaze.

Firefighters desperately tried to save the house but the flames had already taken grip and destroyed the roof, with a large part of it collapsing.

Police launched an investigation into the mystery fire after witnesses said a man was seen going into the property shortly before the blaze broke out.

It comes after others reported Porter Davies properties being targeted by vandals, with three buildings on a single block reportedly having their windows smashed.

Construction costs increased at a record-high rate in mid 2022, costing almost 5 per cent more than the previous quarter.

The rate softened in the next quarter however, dropping to just below 2 per cent.

BUILDING COMPANY COLLAPSES
Victoria-based businesses, Porter Davis Homes and the Lloyd Group went into administration on Friday.

PBS Building went into voluntary administration earlier in March.

NSW apartment developer EQ Constructions collapsed in February, owing $50million.

Perth building company Hamlen Homes went bust in February, with $1.4 million reportedly owed to creditors.

The following day, Melbourne-based residential builder Hallbury Homes went into voluntary administration - $12 million.

Earlier in February, Delco Building Group in Victoria collapsed owing $780,000.

Apartments Falling Short for Families
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The family-friendly apartment is an idea whose time has come.

In the Liverpool CBD in Sydney, for example, half the apartments are occupied by families with children, our newly published study found. This is twice the average for metropolitan Sydney.

The high proportion of families living in apartments in town centres such as Liverpool is often overlooked when situated within suburbs dominated by detached, lower-density homes.

The proportion of families living in apartments challenges many assumptions about high-rise living. Apartments are often seen as “stepping stones” for singles and couples on their way to detached houses, or a convenient lifestyle option for downsizers and empty-nesters.

The families in our study prioritise large, centrally located apartments over detached car-dependent homes. However, we found there’s a lack of larger apartments designed to meet families’ needs.


Families find benefits in apartment living

The families we interviewed reported many benefits to apartment living. They valued being close to work, schools and leisure facilities, with easy walking access to diverse shops and services.

These preferences reflect the marketed benefits of compact living. And our research shows a range of households, including families with children, recognise these benefits. This points to a more fundamental shift in housing demand.

Among our study participants, the birth of a new child did not lead to a detached car-dependent home. Instead, it triggered a search for a larger apartment in the town centre.



▲ The role apartments play has changed dramatically over the decades.

These trends are only partly about choice. Participants acknowledged that a detached home would be more spacious, but it would also mean they faced the added costs of buying and running a second car.

On balance, participants felt the CBD was the “best place” to live. Their priority was finding suitable high-rise homes within walking distance of schools, shops, public transport and community services – including libraries, health centres and parks.

Supply fails to meet family needs

However, when we compared Liverpool CBD families’ preferences with housing supply, we found an overproduction of one- and two-bedroom apartments. These account for most of the increase in apartment numbers over the past decade, as the table below shows.

Size of occupied apartments in Liverpool CBD



▲ Source: Author analysis of ABS Census data, 2011, 2016, 2021

Despite half of all apartment occupiers having children, the proportion of family-sized apartments hasn’t increased. In recent years, it actually fell.

Just over 15 per cent of the high-rise housing stock in the CBD comprised three bedrooms or more at the 2011 and 2016 censuses. By 2021, it had fallen below 14 per cent.

Without planning controls, the supply of large, family-friendly apartments is unlikely to increase. Developers, juggling their own material and credit costs, will always seek to maximise the number of homes they can build on their lots.

The Development Control Plan for Liverpool CBD requires 10 per cent of the stock to be three-bedroom apartments. This is on par with the rest of Sydney.

An exception is the Hills Shire Council, which has experimented with 20 per cent in development corridors. Increased supply without design and quality controls can nonetheless exacerbate the tensions of raising a family in an apartment.

Good design, quality matter

Real estate advertising for apartments emphasises skyline views, open-plan layouts and private balconies.

But it is less glamorous aspects—insulation, space and storage—that can be crucial for families to live well in a high-rise home.



▲ Families’ needs in housing, including apartments, are specific.

Good family-friendly design includes space for children to sleep, play and study, and adequate storage for prams and the belongings of larger households.

Adequate soundproofing is also needed to reduce tensions over children’s noise.

All these features are critical for higher-density dwellings to cater properly for this growing demographic.

Construction quality is also important. A recent analysis of federal and New South Wales parliamentary inquiries reveals the impacts of public policies of deregulation, self-certification and performance-based construction.

The effect has been to shield cost-cutting by developers and construction companies while transferring risks to consumers.

While state governments experiment with new modes of regulation, consumers bear the life-time impacts, both financial and emotional, of cut-price construction.

High-rise homes: more than an investment

Societies in which a shift to higher-density living is part of family life must strike a reasonable balance between quality, affordability and apartment size. Yet these goals seem to be at odds with the reconfiguration of housing in Australia as an investment vehicle.

The protection of owned homes from capital gains tax and lavish subsidies for property investors have led to gains in the value of housing assets exceeding income earned from work. This sets the scene for finance and construction industries to capitalise on investor-driven demand rather than diverse families’ needs.

Reforms on three fronts needed

Meeting demand for high-rise housing in town centres requires a triple-barrelled approach. Construction quality, planning control and reconfigured financial incentives are all needed to encourage family-friendly products.

There is little doubt high-rise needs a more central place at the national urban policy table. And, at a more local level, there are steps councils can take. These include introducing minimum requirements for three-bedroom apartments in development control plans and negotiating density bonuses for developers that deliver such apartments.

Authors

Nicole Cook
Lecturer, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong

Shanaka Herath
Senior lecturer, School of Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney

Sophie-May Kerr
Research associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SBD wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 7:52 pm

Another example that what the potential customers actually want is not what the developers and estate agents tell them they want. This article says there is a demand for apartment living, but not the style that s readily provided by the "experts" who don't listen to their potential customers.

What developers seem to want to provide is a stack of small shoeboxes topped by an expansive and expensve penthouse. The article suggests there is actually demand for inner-city apartments that are designed and built like suburban houses, but with the advantages of living close to the things a city provides. Maybe the developers of the Central Market or bus station towers will read this and try something a bit different.

but also because of our geography, the public transport challenge is high.

Nathan wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 2:22 pm

Absolutely awful. Such a regressive view of urban planning. Unfortunately the alternative government would be just as bad if not worse.

but also because of our geography, the public transport challenge is high.

I would like to see him expand on this little excuse.

SRW wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:18 pm

Renewal SA superinjected with government funding to secure the sites and kick off development, just as this state did in the post-war period under Playford.

Nathan wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:43 pm

SRW wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:18 pm

Renewal SA superinjected with government funding to secure the sites and kick off development, just as this state did in the post-war period under Playford.

Also needs a cultural change at RenewalSA to stick to their guns over long term projects. When they have secured a site and plan greater density, they eventually lose interest and start delivering townhouses because it's quicker and easier to sell and move on from the whole project — when these are the exact sites to be pushing much harder on higher density apartment buildings and leave the townhouses for infill in existing suburbs.

Nathan wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:43 pm

SRW wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:18 pm

Renewal SA superinjected with government funding to secure the sites and kick off development, just as this state did in the post-war period under Playford.

Also needs a cultural change at RenewalSA to stick to their guns over long term projects. When they have secured a site and plan greater density, they eventually lose interest and start delivering townhouses because it's quicker and easier to sell and move on from the whole project — when these are the exact sites to be pushing much harder on higher density apartment buildings and leave the townhouses for infill in existing suburbs.