Awards for Excellence nominees announced
UDIA is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2018 UDIA WA Awards for Excellence. With close to 50 entries across 14 categories, the calibre of projects involved this year is outstanding.
Registrations close this Friday for the gala dinner on 15 September where the winners and finalists will be announced. Don’t miss out on this fantastic event celebrating the very best the urban development industry has to offer in WA.
UDIA would like to sincerely thank our esteemed award judges who have visited all of the nominated projects over the last few weeks, Cameron Shephard and Gavin Hegney. Thanks also to our Platinum Sponsor, the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAPC); Gold Sponsors Longreach Recruitment and Wood and Grieve Engineers and all of our category sponsors.
Download the list of nominees here.
More details on how to register for the Awards for Excellence Gala Dinner here.
Foreign Buyers Surcharge Levy
This week UDIA met with opposition Members of the Legislative Council to discuss the Government’s proposed increase to the Foreign Buyers Surcharge Levy. UDIA reiterated the negative impact that the increased levy will have on the development industry and therefore the State’s economy and also Government revenues.
UDIA understands that the Levy is likely to be debated in Parliament in October and the Institute will continue to liaise with Members of Parliament to ensure that the negative impacts of the levy are fully understood.
Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Regulations, Meeting with Minister Dawson
The Minister for the Environment, Hon Stephen Dawson MLC hosted a parliamentary meeting with Shadow Minister for Environment, Steve Thomas MLC, UDIA and representatives from DWER, HIA and CME to discuss the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Regulations disallowance motion.
A number of issues concerning the Regulations were discussed, including the uncontaminated fill testing requirements. The Department provided a commitment to release further guidance supporting the Regulations in the coming weeks and to establish an industry working group to review the Regulations. UDIA will keep members informed of progress.
Federal Ministry shake up
As we advised in a member alert on Monday, the federal leadership spill has not only resulted in a new Prime Minister being appointed, several key ministerial portfolios have also been impacted. From an urban development industry perspective, key changes include Michael Sukkar, the former Assistant Minister to the Treasurer in charge of housing affordability moved to the backbench and Paul Fletcher, the former Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities has been moved to Families and Social Services.
The Urban Infrastructure and Cities portfolio has been refocused to include ‘population’ with Alan Tudge to serve as the new Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population.
Melissa Price MP, has been appointed as Environment Minister, a step up from her role as Assistant Minister. Ms Price is a WA member representing the Division of Durack and her new portfolio will also include addressing Australia’s emissions targets.
A full list of Prime Minister Scott Morison’s new Ministry can be found in UDIA’s member alert here.
UDIA meeting with PEXA
UDIA met with representatives from PEXA today to discuss WA’s transition to electronic processing of property transactions. Use of the PEXA platform will be mandatory as of 1 December 2018 as WA follows the eastern states with Victoria commencing on 1 October 2018.
UDIA raised concerns at the meeting that have been expressed to us regarding PEXA’s ability to process bulk transactions. PEXA has advised that a specific module within the system has been developed to deal with such transactions.
PEXA is working with UDIA WA to develop a masterclass for members to be informed on the details for the new system prior to it becoming compulsory.
UDIA CEO Appointment process
We are pleased to advise that Longreach Recruitment has been appointed to commence the search for a new UDIA WA CEO. We will keep members up to date on progress. As you will be aware, the current CEO Allison Hailes will continue in the role until early November 2018.
Strata reform makes progress
The Strata Titles Amendment Bill and the Community Titles Bill both passed the Legislative Assembly earlier this week. The Bills will now be debated in the Legislative Council. UDIA strongly supports the swift passage of the legislation through both houses and we have advocated for the importance of the improvements that the Bills will bring to the development industry in WA to members of parliament.
DAPs Specialist Positions
The Minister for Planning is inviting suitably qualified people to apply for the specialist positions of Presiding Member and Deputy Presiding Member to sit on the Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) until 26 January 2020.
DAPs aim to enhance planning expertise in decision-making by improving the balance between technical advice and local knowledge. Specialist and local government members work together to determine complex development applications that meet certain class and value thresholds.
Applicants must have a tertiary qualification or substantial experience in town planning to apply for positions as Presiding Members and Deputy Presiding Members on the DAPs. Successful applicants may be eligible to be paid a sitting fee of $425 per meeting for a deputy presiding member and $700 per meeting for a presiding member in determination of new DAP applications.
The Expression of Interest form and details are available on the DAP website here.
UDIA Professional Development Program open
Registrations are now open for the October 2018 intake of the UDIA Professional Development Program. This highly regarded program is tailored directly to property industry professionals and provides participants with an excellent breadth of knowledge required to operate effectively in our local residential development industry.
The program is also aligned to the BSB51415 Diploma of Project Management delivered by Swinburne University of Technology. This means that upon completion of the full six-day course, participants may submit their portfolios of evidence and apply for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), to be awarded the Diploma of Project Management delivered by Swinburne.
More details can be found here.
Landgate commercialisation
The McGowan Labor Government has selected Investec Australia via an independent competitive process, to assist the preparation and execution of the partial commercialisation and to further develop options for Landgate’s Advara investment.
Earlier this week, the Victorian government sealed a $2.86 billion deal to lease their land registry for 40 years, which WA Business News reported provides an idea of how much our state government may expect from a similar, but smaller, privatisation.
Latest data on unit completions
CoreLogic has released their latest Settlement Risk data which estimates the number of new units expected to be completed over the next 12 and 24 months. According to the report, over the next 12 months, it is expected that an additional 94,471 new units will be completed nationally which represents a 3.5% uplift in total unit supply. Over the next 24 months, the unit supply uplift is expected to be much greater at 251,751 units which is an increase of 9.3% on current supply.
Of interest for WA, Perth City ranked ninth in the top 25 regions for forecast new units over the next two years with a potential additional 3,807 new units which is an expected 9.5% increase.
More details here.
Dwelling approvals experience moderate rise
According to the latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the trend estimate for total number of dwelling units approved in Western Australia rose 1.0 per cent in July. The trend estimate for the number of private sector houses rose 1.1 per cent.
The number of dwellings approved across Australia fell by 1.3 per cent in July 2018 in trend terms. The trend estimate of the value of total buildings approved fell 1.2% in July and has fallen for eight months. The value of residential building fell 1.8% and has fallen for six months. The value of non-residential building was flat.
More information here.