A public brawl has erupted about the question of whether or not Australia really needs more planners.

In its latest research note, grass roots development advocacy group YIMBY Melbourne has questioned claims by the planning industry that the nation has a shortage of urban and regional planners.Instead, YIMBY says that new housing delivery is being held up by greater planning complexity and declining planner productivity.

But the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) has hit back, accusing the group of ignoring critical evidence as well as the growing complexity of the urban environment (see below).

In its note, YIMBY asserts that there is no shortage of planners as claimed by PIA.

Instead, the group says that the focus must extend beyond planner supply and include considerations about what it refers to as ‘planner demand’. This term is not defined in the note but appears to refer to the process and complexity of the planning system.

In its paper, YIMBY says that the number of urban and regional planners who are practicing across Australia has increased almost ninefold over the past four decades from 1986 and 2025.

Over that same timeframe, it says that the number of dwellings that were completed for each planner has reduced from greater than fifty to fewer than nine (see chart).

Whilst it acknowledges that greater complexity in planning and building controls may require planners to undertake more in-depth assessments, YIMBY says that this alone is unlikely to explain the reduction in planner output.

Even among similar dwelling types, the group claims that housing permits are taking longer to obtain.

In Victoria, for example, the group says that approval timeframes for a medium density housing proposal for ten units has risen from 55 days in 1999 to 371 days in 2022.

(Note: approval timeframes in 2022 in Victoria may have been abnormally impacted to some degree as the state was recovering from two years of COVID lockdowns and an unprecedented volume of activity in detached home building which was associated with the Commonwealth Homebuilder program.)

YIMBY lead organiser Jonathan O’Brien said that Australia does not need more planners but rather needs a less complex and more efficient planning system.

“Peak planning bodies are like doctors prescribing more bandages for a patient who keeps getting stabbed,” O’Brien said.

“We don’t need more planners—we need to stop the regulatory bleeding that’s making each planner less productive than ever before.

“In 1986, one planner could facilitate 54 homes being built. Today, it takes six planners to do the same job. That’s not a labour shortage—that’s a productivity catastrophe driven by planning rules that prioritise process over homes.

“If we hired enough planners to restore 1986 productivity levels without fixing the underlying system, we’d need to employ one in every 50 working Australians as a planner. The solution isn’t more bureaucrats—it’s less bureaucracy.”

(image source: YIMBY Melbourne)

 

Claims of planner shortage

The latest paper comes as planning industry lobby groups have warned that a shortage of planners posed a hidden risk to the nation’s ability to address important built environment challenges.

In the days before the May election, the Planning Institute of Australia warned that a growing shortage of urban and regional planners posed a ‘hidden risk to Australia’s housing, infrastructure and climate resilience goals.

At the time of its warning, PIA released the results of a survey of more than 1,000 of its members.

According to that survey, almost two thirds of respondents indicated that their organisation has struggled to fill planning roles over the past twelve months. In addition, more than half (51.2 percent indicated that a lack of qualified candidates was the number one barrier to recruitment.

Furthermore, almost half (49.2 percent) of survey respondents believed that the shortage of planners which is claimed by PIA is directly impacting the nation’s capacity to respond to housing affordability and supply challenges.

Unless this is addressed, PIA warned at the time that the nation risked slower and costlier housing projects.

It warned the ability to plan effectively at the front end is critical to ensure that new housing supply is supported by coordinated infrastructure development.

Compromised planning outcomes may also impact the nation’s capacity to deliver communities which are resilient to climate related impacts, it added.

The PIA’s contention is further supported by the Australian Government agency Jobs and Skills Australia.

In calendar 2024, the agency indicated that urban and regional planners were in shortage nationally and were in shortage in each state and territory except for New South Wales.

 

Planning bodies fight back

In a statement, Nicole Bennetts, Head of Advocacy at PIA, rejected YIBMY’s claims.

Planners, Bennetts said are critical to effective long-term planning which promotes positive built environment outcomes.

As for YIMBY’s dispute about planner shortages, Bennetts says that such claims ignore critical evidence, including the aforementioned assessment from Jobs and Skills Australia.

Regarding comparisons with 1986, Bennetts said that the nature of Australia’s built environment has changed and become more complex over recent decades. This has occurred as the nation now has much larger populations in major cities with greater need for urban consolidation and infill.

As for claims that lengthy approval timeframes are delaying new housing delivery, Bennetts noted there is a substantial volume of new housing projects in relation to which approvals have in fact been granted but were still yet to commence construction.

According to Bennetts:

“Suggesting there is no planner shortage ignores the evidence, including the findings of Jobs and Skills Australia, the government’s own independent workforce advisory body” Bennetts said.

“Like most Australians, planners want to see more homes built in well-located communities and that requires good planning to ensure housing is supported by infrastructure, services, jobs and green space,” she said.

“Planners also want to see better planning systems, where long-term strategic planning sets clear, upfront rules so assessment processes can be simpler and faster.

“We need a stronger focus on building community support for more homes in well-located areas and opposing political interference that blocks projects that are consistent with planning schemes.

“There are years’ worth of housing with planning approvals, but many projects are not being built by developers due to feasibility issues, including rising costs, labour shortages, and market conditions.

“In 1986, most new homes were detached houses in greenfield areas. Today, more than a third are higher-density developments such as apartments, which require more complex assessment of issues like transport, design quality, and infrastructure.

“At the same time, governments have tasked planning systems with new responsibilities, including managing flood and bushfire risk, better planning for transport and community infrastructure, and protecting environmentally sensitive land.

“If we want better planning, we need more planners. And if we want more housing, we need to address the broader economic and policy barriers that are affecting feasibility and holding the development of new homes back.”

 

YIMBY strikes back again

Responding to PIA’s response, however, YIMBY says the response in fact illustrates its point.

YIMBY accuses PIA of failing to address its core aforementioned claims and data about what it says is the decline in planner productivity.

Instead, YIMBY says that PIA’s response which ‘calls for more of the same: more planners to manage more complexity’, in fact serves to demonstrate reasons behind a decline in planning productivity.

As for the PIA’s claims about urban environment’s becoming denser and more complex, YIMBY says that this fails to demonstrate why planner productivity has ‘collapsed’ relative to construction productivity over the same period.

In fact, YIMBY says that the planning process to build a 3-storey apartment building has risen from a few pages in the 1960s to hundreds of pages today.

Overall, YIMBY said that it was not suggesting that there were too many planners but was rather pointing out that the sector’s productivity has collapsed.

“The PIA’s response is a masterclass in missing the point,” O’Brien said.

“We never said there are ‘too many planners’—we said each planner is delivering 85% fewer homes than 40 years ago. That’s not a labour shortage; it’s a productivity catastrophe.

“When conservative planners argue we need more planners to manage more complexity, they’re describing the disease as if it’s the cure. The solution isn’t hiring one in 50 working Australians as planners—it’s fixing the system that turned planning from enabling homes to preventing them.”

“PIA claims planners want simpler, faster assessment processes. Great—so why are they defending a system that’s made permits seven times slower?”

 

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