Measuring Planning System Performance: the Case of Housing Supply and Affordability

INTRODUCTION In the last few years there has been intense interest in the performance of Australia's planning systems. Partly driven by concerns about housing supply and affordability, and in part by a wider regulatory reform agenda, there have been major challenges to the legitimacy of policy settings for land supply, environmental assessment and infrastructure charging (eg. RDC 2007; COAG Reform Council 2010). However, to date the evidence base on planning system performance is limited and largely dominated by sectoral interests. Indicators of performance are often simplistic – focusing on the quantity and speed of decisions – which in many cases misconstrue the wider social and environmental purposes of planning systems. In this context, this paper presents early findings from a larger study (Gurran, Phibbs et al. 2011) which aims to establish a more comprehensive framework for measuring planning performance in relation to housing supply and affordability outcomes and more widely.