Work is well underway to support the delivery of more homes within existing Canberra suburbs.

The ACT Government has finished consulting with the community on a draft major amendment to the Territory Plan.

This has shown significant community support for the amendment, which allows for ‘missing middle’ housing reforms.

What are the missing middle Housing reforms?

The proposed reforms consist of two key parts:

• The Missing Middle Housing Design Guide. This will provide good practice guidance for creating well-designed homes. These homes will respect local character and contribute positively to Canberra streets and neighbourhoods.

• Changes to the Territory Plan to remove barriers in the planning system and allow more housing options in RZ1 and RZ2 areas. These changes will make it easier to build well-designed, sustainable homes in existing suburbs.

More housing supply and choice

Addressing the ‘missing middle’ will benefit Canberrans at all stages of life.

The reforms will enable more dwellings in suburbs, such as:

• townhouses

• row houses

• duplexes

• low-rise apartments.

This supports the ACT Government’s commitment to enable 30,000 new homes by 2030.

Significant community support

The reforms aim to strike a balance between increasing housing supply and maintaining Canberra’s character.

During the consultation, Canberrans expressed support for:

• allowing homeowners to subdivide their blocks before construction

• practical design guidance to ensure new housing fits well into existing neighbourhoods and manages potential impacts to neighbours.

Key changes to the draft reforms

• Refined subdivision policies to support appropriate residential block subdivisions with clearer, more flexible rules and not requiring a dwelling to be constructed first.

• Strengthened solar access protections to safeguard sunlight for neighbouring properties.

• Clarified dwelling densities and updates to technical specifications to support good design and amenity.

• Additional heritage controls to clarify that heritage requirements need to be considered, where applicable.

The draft Missing Middle Housing Design Guide will also be updated to reflect community feedback.

This will include changes to provide clearer guidance on:

• subdivision scenarios

• landscaping

• heritage

• infrastructure

• the design of diverse housing types.

Next steps

The draft amendment will now be referred to the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Transport and Planning.

You can find the full consultation report and revised draft reforms on the YourSay Conversations website.