Plan delays drive cost of building
DEVELOPMENT BOOM PUTS PRESSURE ON APPROVALS
FAMILIES are copping bigdollar blowouts as a critical link in the Cairns development industry puts their dream homes on hold.
A development boom across the city has been taking its toll with local authorities struggling to keep up with a mountain of activity.
Now Bridgewater Builders director Peter Bridgewater has revealed the extra costs clients and developers are copping above and beyond the volatile prices of materials.
“You’ve got the costs of a client renting for extra time, which might be $500-$600 a week,” he said.
“For a lot of our clients, it’s taken so long their rental (lease) has expired and tenants have been kicked out or had increased rents.”
The costs for builders locked into fixed prices can be considerably more.
Cairns had the third highest number of development ap
provals of any local government area in the state last quarter, behind just Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
It was a considerable feat for a city with a population of about 170,000, exceeding the likes of Ipswich (population 234,000), Moreton Bay (479,000), Logan (341,00) and the Sunshine Coast (336,000) in South East Queensland.
A new council report states decision-making for material change of use applications took an average of 67 business days – above the state average of 61.
Reconfiguring a lot took 72 days against a state average of 62.
Operational works – including road works, tree clearing, excavation and infrastructure – took 78 days compared to a 47-day Queensland average.
The only metric on which the council beat the state average was assessable building works, completed on average in 28 days against an average of 35.
The council’s new planning director Ed Johnson attributed the holdup to the high volume of activity, as well as developers’ own delays in responding to council information requests.
“We are seeing, and are likely to see a continuing high level of development activity in Cairns based on the strength of the lifestyle we have …” he said.
Mr Bridgewater said a lack
of consistency was the biggest strain on builders and their clients.
“There’s just no urgency there,” he said.
“We might put in two development
applications every week, just tick-and-flick standard houses. One comes back in three days and the other takes a few weeks.”
The construction industry
had hoped across-the-board development fee hikes introduced late last year would translate into extra staff and efficiency within the council’s planning team.