Cities are constantly being built, unbuilt and rebuilt, at an increasingly rapid rate. City-dwellers all over the world will be very familiar with the experience of seeing a row of houses or old apartment block transformed to something much taller, wider, and bulkier. But the process of assembling the land that lays beneath these developments is much less familiar. This process is the subject of a three-year Australian Research Council funded research project, ‘Reassembling the City: understanding urban renewal through resident-led collective property sales’, jointly undertaken by researchers at City Futures Research Centre UNSW and Macquarie University. The project examines the phenomenon and process of neighbouring residents acting together to sell their properties in areas of urban renewal, illustrated by case study research in Sydney and Vancouver. The project investigators include Professor Simon Pinnegar, Professor Hazel Easthope, and Dr Laura Crommelin and Professor Kristian Ruming from Macquarie University, supported by research associates Dr Charlie Gillon and Dr Sha Liu.
Urban policy in recent years has encouraged densification of existing built up areas. ‘Compact city’ planning strategies have encouraged ‘activation’ around key strategic centres and urban renewal corridors, in the context of high population growth and demand for new housing supply. At the same time, the financialisation of housing has supercharged housing markets globally. The higher density development driven by these trends requires larger land parcels, which can be difficult to find in established urban areas. Governments and large developers were behind the first wave of site assembly, but recently a more bottom-up process appears to be gaining popularity. Owners of both detached properties and units in ageing apartment buildings are now finding that working with their neighbours to sell as a collective is much more profitable than selling their property alone.
Such a process raises several questions:
- It brings the tensions between housing as an asset and housing as a home into sharp relief.
- It blurs the boundaries between notions of individual and collective interests vis-à-vis property rights.
- It challenges conventional understandings of top-down versus bottom-up processes of urban development and the role and nature of the growth coalitions reshaping contemporary cities.
We know little about the extent to which collective sales are proactive or reactive – driven by the entrepreneurialism of owners versus pressures or obligations. The different types of collective sales, and their geographies, has received scant attention to date.
The project team will map collective sales that have taken place in Sydney and Vancouver over the past five years, and examine a number of case study sites in each city in greater detail. Research includes interviewing a range of stakeholders involved in servicing and enabling the collective sales process, as well as the residents involved and the relevant planning authorities. Feedback from neighbouring residents will also be invited.
Project Publications
Project Conference Presentations (presenter in bold)
- Pinnegar S (2021) ‘Reassembling Cities: Conceptualising collective sales’. Presented at the 10th State of Australian Cities (SOAC) National Conference, Melbourne, 1-3 December 2021.
- Easthope H, Pinnegar S, Crommelin L, Gillon C, Ruming, K & Liu S (2023) ‘Superlot sales in Sydney: owner-led site amalgamation of apartment buildings’. Presented at the Australian College of Strata Lawyers (ACSL) 18th Annual Strata Law Conference, Singapore Management University, Singapore, 1-3 March 2023
- Ruming K, Pinnegar S, Easthope H, Crommelin L, Liu S & Gillon C (2023) ‘Negotiating suburban development in Australia: homeowner YIMBYs, NIMBYs and contested development “rights”’, presented at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) annual conference, Chicago IL, 23-27 March 2023.
- Gillon C, Easthope H, Pinnegar S, Ruming K, Crommelin L & Liu S (2023) ‘How the planning process shifts understandings of property: the ‘rezoned property’ as a site of ontological security’. Presented at the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) Annual Conference, Curtin University, Perth, 5-7 July 2023.
- Crommelin L, Gillon C, Pinnegar S, Ruming K, Easthope H, Liu S (2023) ‘Collective sales: Are they worth the time?’. Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Annual Conference, Chicago IL, 19-21 October 2023.
- Pinnegar S, Ruming K, Gillon C, Liu S, Crommelin L & Easthope H (2023) ‘The push, shove and gentle coercion of strategic planning process: shaping owner behaviours and the iterative process of rezoning’. Presented at the 11th State Of Australasian Cities (SOAC) National Conference, Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, 6-8 December 2023.
- Ruming K, Liu S, Pinnegar S, Gillon C, Crommelin L & Easthope H (2023) ‘The dynamics of residential collective sales: coming together, staying together, and falling apart (and coming together again)’. Presented at the 11th State Of Australasian Cities (SOAC) National Conference, Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, 6-8 December 2023.
- Crommelin L, Gillon C, Pinnegar S, Ruming K, Easthope H & Liu S (2023) ‘Growing pains: learning from the ruins that emerge through redevelopment’. Presented at the 11th State Of Australasian Cities (SOAC) National Conference, Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, 6-8 December 2023.
- Liu S, Ruming K, Gillon C, Pinnegar S, Crommelin L & Easthope H (2024) ‘“It’s like winning the lottery but without buying a lottery ticket”: Housing market impacts of strategic planning, upzoning, and resident collective sales’. Presented at joint Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research - Australasian Housing Researchers' Conference (APNHR-AHRC), the University of Adelaide, Adelaide. 21-23 February 2024.
- Ruming K, Crommelin L, Pinnegar S, Easthope H, Liu S & Gillon C (2024) ‘Selling together: the calculative practices of resident collective sales’. Presented at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference, Honolulu HI, 16-20 April 2024.
Project Media Coverage
