We often hear about the ‘missing middle’ in a planning and building design context, to refer to small to medium-size dwellings located close to the inner city, creating low impact, ‘gentle’ density close to employment and services rather than framing housing as a simplistic choice between high rise apartments and large, detached houses. But there is another ‘missing middle’; that is housing products that are affordable to households who earn too much to access social and affordable housing, but too little to be able to enter home ownership through traditional mortgages.

Shelter NSW CEO John Engeler was at the Marcus Evans Affordable Housing Australasia conference on 28 and 29 July, joining planners, policy practitioners, developers and advocates from across government, industry and the community sector to discuss practical solutions to Australia’s housing affordability crisis.

John led a session exploring how planning reform, innovative housing models and new pathways to home ownership can improve housing affordability: ‘Making Affordability Stack Up: Zoning, Ownership Models and Alternative Housing Typologies’.

The discussion was varied, ranging from ‘co-living’ and ‘micro-unit’ developments, to emerging financial models designed to support people locked out of home ownership, such as shared equity and ‘rent-to-buy’.

Shelter NSW welcomed the opportunity to contribute a housing justice perspective in a conference primarily focused on development, built form, and finance stack models, reinforcing the importance of expanding social and affordable housing, ensuring innovative housing models deliver genuine affordability, and keeping the needs of people living on lower incomes at the heart of housing policy conversations and future planning.