YIMBY Melbourne

YIMBY Melbourne is excited to announce our first "Melbourne Housing Hackathon" 🎉 An enormous portion of YIMBY Melbourne's impact is underpinned by our volunteers' strong skills in data and technology. Now, our first ever Housing Hackathon is an opportunity for volunteers to come together and work on a series of high-impact projects that will multiply the organisation's impact going forward. All in one action-packed weekend. This isn't just a hackathon for programmers—it's for anyone who wants to contribute to the YIMBY Melbourne mission. Whether you're an experienced programmer, or someone who's played around in Python a little, or are interested in communication and design, or just keen to learn something new—then this is the weekend for you. Book for free at the link below!

🚨🚨🚨 Congestion Charge Mentioned 🚨🚨🚨 On Boxing Day, The Age gave us fuel for one of our favorite BBQ conversations: how expensive parking is getting. https://lnkd.in/gPPdvURz The Treasurer intends to lift the congestion levy, but the Property Council argues the levy is ineffective at fighting congestion. My Christmas gift to myself is going online to argue that the congestion levy is, in fact, good at fighting congestion. Increasing it and expanding the area is a good thing for the city.

Yesterday, The Age's Adam Carey ran an article in which one of YIMBY Melbourne's critics described our policies as trickle-down. This is a common anti-YIMBY talking point. It's dishonest and, most importantly—wrong. It's true that new housing is going to be more expensive than the equivalent housing that is old. This makes sense: new things tend to be more expensive than old things (see: cars, white goods, etc). But that new housing does get cheaper as it ages, as e61 Institute's Matthew Maltman and Nick Garvin demonstrated nicely in their "Hand-me-down housing" research note. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gRRp9DFf Housing does get less expensive as it is handed down. But critics choose the term "trickle-down" specifically. They aim to invoke a specific set of Reagan-era tax cuts for the wealthy, widely acknowledged by experts to have failed in their stated goal of stimulating productive investment in the economy. But here's the thing: building homes is very, very different from cutting taxes. For starters, homes are material things that people get to live in. Even a brand new property bought by an investor, in almost all cases, has tenants. And those tenants were previously living somewhere else. Even where housing is an investment—someone is consuming it. When there are more homes, there are more options for people to consume housing. Abundant housing means abundant options. It means more bargaining power for renters, and fewer tradeoffs for buyers. It's a win for everyone. This "trickle-down" critique tends to come from people who are cynical of abundance in general. They don't like the idea of 'more'. Shaw—the critic quoted by the Age—herself subscribes to degrowth, which argues that humanity has achieved enough, and shouldn't strive for anything better. We should stop growing. We're done. Degrowth, of course, is a hyper-privileged position, and ignores the fact that the number one way to bring people out of poverty is via strong economic growth. The few well-paid academics calling for degrowth are pulling the ladder out from under them on a global scale. In the era of cheap renewable energy and increasing productive efficiency, we can and should do more. Ambition is not a bad thing for a society to have! Australia can and should do more—for current Australians, for future Australians, and for the whole of the globe. Indeed, contrary to the degrowth position, humanity is not, in fact, done. And part of not being done means building more homes where people want to live. I'm proud that YIMBY Melbourne is able to be a grassroots, pro-growth voice for a bigger, better Melbourne. As the open society finds itself under greater threat from cynics on all sides, it is important we remain vocal. You can become a member and join us for 2025: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gTdyBWfz

The Abundant Housing Network Australia welcomes the addition of housing construction workers to the core skills visa list, a necessary step toward building the 1.2 million well-located homes our country desperately needs. We have been calling for this change since our September 2023 letter to Minister O’Neil, and are pleased to see the government finally take action, and actually treating this crisis like a crisis. You can read the letter here: https://lnkd.in/gcdnT7bm You can read the full article in the Financial Review below: https://lnkd.in/gKRqhTY5 Greater Brisbane, Greater Canberra, Sydney YIMBY, YIMBY Melbourne

We're thrilled to have had our proposal shortlisted for AMPLIFY's National Housing Amplification next year! What is the National Housing Amplification? In February 2025, one hundred broadly representative Australians will meet in person, in Sydney, NSW for Australia’s first national housing deliberation. The level of support for housing reform will be tested before and after the opportunity to learn from housing experts and discuss deeply with people who hold very different views. If this sounds interesting to you, go to their website below to find out more: https://lnkd.in/g2UQKfhE

Bayside had the second lowest housing growth in metropolitan Melbourne. It’s time for them to play their part in building a future for Victorians. Read the full article in The Age below: https://lnkd.in/gQz33fRX

We're thrilled that our proposal for Australia-wide medium density has been shortlisted for AMPLIFY's housing deliberations next year! Our housing crisis will only be solved by enabling more homes to be built where people want to live. We look forward to getting housing abundance onto the national agenda.

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria slams the Victorian Government (for policies that don't actually exist). “The Royal Historical Society of Victoria seem much more interested in complaining about change rather than thinking about where their grandkids or great grandkids are going to live.” – Jonathan O’Brien, Lead Organiser Read the full story below: https://lnkd.in/gcfJMmVi

Great to have Jonathan O'Brien who leads housing supply advocacy group YIMBY Melbourne pop in and visit today. I shared how we’re seeing the barriers in the market and hopefully armed him with some data to help the property development industry get more homes built. No one thinks there is a simple solution, but I think at least now it is universally accepted that we have a major issue that is getting worse by the day

We are live in Box Hill, Melbourne finding uncommon ground in the intergenerational divide. This morning, our community members heard from a range of experts: -Professor Patrick McGorry AO, the founder of Orygen and Professor of Youth Mental Health; - Matthew Taylor Taylor, the Director Intergeneration Program at the Centre for Independent Studies; - Jason Tabarias Program Director at the Susan McKinnon Foundation; - Ashleigh Streeter-Jones Streeter-Jones the founder of Raise Our Voice Australia; and - Jonathan O'Brien from YIMBY Melbourne With Danielle Wood still to come, this group are deep in dialogue about the issues underpinning the intergenerational divide. Thanks to all our experts and the incredible members of the Box Hill community for their time and engagement. This group has found they have more that binds them than divides them. All brilliantly facilitated by Keith Greaves FIAP2, Lyndal Mackintosh and Gus Richardson from MosaicLab Co.