Labor returned to Government
UDIA WA has congratulated Premier Roger Cook and his Labor team on a third term leading our State Government in Western Australia.
As an industry organisation, we value a collaborative approach to advocacy and the positive working relationship we have built with government stakeholders over many years as we represent the community creators across Western Australia.
This election had a significant focus on housing supply and housing policy as we aim to get more homes on the ground, faster, to benefit all West Australians.
We look forward to continuing to work with the Government to progress the commitments that have been made to tackle housing supply challenges, so that private industry can get on with the important job of building the homes we need.
Members can view our online election commitment tracker here, where we will continue to keep government accountable.
Read a recent interview with Premier Cook, outlining his vision for the state, in UDIA WA’s The Urbanist magazine, here.
National Congress & Awards for Excellence
The countdown to National Congress is on! Beginning 17 March in Brisbane, this year’s Congress features a packed three-day schedule covering a range of topics from the annual launch of UDIA’s State of the Land report, an exploration of the state of our cities, through to an examination of the latest geopolitical landscape and a deep dive into housing affordability across the country.
Closing out the three-day program will be the 2025 National Awards for Excellence Gala Dinner celebrating fantastic developments and teams around Australia. We wish the very best of luck to the WA teams, and projects, vying to take out the top spot at this year’s National Awards for Excellence!
View the teams and projects nominated for the 2025 Awards for Excellence.
Emerging Leaders
Part of our 2024 UDIA WA Emerging Leaders Program cohort, Sarah Cosoleto is a Development Manager with Stockland. Following the one-day emerging leaders course offered by UDIA WA, Sarah was paired with mentor Jonathan Small from TABEC Civil Engineering for a tailored six-month mentoring program facilitated by the team at UDIA WA.
Sarah has shared with us, that throughout the mentoring sessions to date, the most important lessons for her have been to prioritise personal values, embrace difficult conversations and create a culture of development within her team.
Taking this lesson, and the knowledge gained in the one-day course, forward into her role at Stockland, looking forward, Sarah plans to enhance her overall communication skills with her project team, focusing on building stronger relationships across all internal departments, aligning her personal values to everything they are doing. Sarah has valued the program’s learning opportunities and will continue to seek mentoring and leadership opportunities and continually ask her team for feedback so they can grow and adapt as required.
If you like the sound of Sarah’s experience with this bespoke industry program, don’t miss your opportunity to be part of the next exclusive cohort of our Emerging Leaders Program! This is a unique opportunity to Invest in your people leadership skills with a comprehensive one-day leadership course that examines in detail how to be an effective leader in our industry. The bespoke mentoring component is an optional addition to the one-day course.
Developed in partnership with AIM WA, this course has been built for development industry professionals with at least five years of experience, perfect for the next generation of leaders looking to accelerate their journey.
Register to be part of the next cohort.
UDIA launches Federal Election Campaign
As the dust continues to settle from WA’s State Election, it’s time to turn our focus toward the upcoming federal election. Slated to happen no later than May 17, housing supply and policy continue to be headline issues.
UDIA has therefore launched a 2025 Federal Election Campaign – Fast Track Housing Delivery – which points to the key housing challenges that must be addressed nation-wide to help Australians have a better chance of owning their own home.
Fast Track Housing Delivery is built around five key actions that are critical to meet national housing targets:
- Fast-Track Housing Infrastructure – transport, poles wires roads, pipes and parks. Create a $5bn Federal enabling infrastructure fund for more projects that support new housing.
- Reprioritise the Accord Bonus with upfront incentives. Increase construction, density, enabling infrastructure and halve planning times.
- Build the Homes we need – incentives to boost housing for middle Australia. Create Federal, tradable tax credits scheme (20% of housing development cost) that can be applied against taxes or sold to catalyse a second median priced dwelling.
- Release More Land Supply – Incentives for development ready land, accelerating zoning, unlock surplus Government land.
- Boost Housing Capability. Rebuild the capacity of the depleted construction and development workforce by enabling targeted migration of house-building skilled labour.
Read UDIA National’s Federal Election Platform.
Unpacking project feasibility
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, UDIA WA was pleased to run our first Project Feasibility, Risk and Finance in Property Development course.
The course was attended by participants from diverse backgrounds and roles.
Over the two days, participants heard from and engaged with industry experts to better understand the fundamentals of building and assessing project feasibilities, how to identify and manage key risks, the importance of visioning and value management, opportunities with different funding and financing strategies and how to create compelling business cases.
Participant feedback highlighted the relevance and breadth of topics covered, and the engaging delivery and interactive group exercises.
Thank you to our industry experts for sharing their time, expertise and passion – Jordan Williams (Peet Limited), Brendan Gorringe (Cedar Woods), Stuart Reside (Urban Quarter), Stuart Nahajski (The Civil Group WA), Priya Correia (Mirvac), Laurie Winton (Winrome Capital), Andrew Wallis (Stockland) and David Tomasich (DevelopmentWA).
Explore UDIA WA Educate’s extensive course offerings curated specifically for development industry professionals here.
Information sessions for Stream 1 of Streets Alive now running
Applications for Stream 1 project grants under the Streets Alive program are now open and will close on Wednesday 16 April.
Opened once a year, eligible projects will start from 1 August 2025 and be completed by 30 June 2026. Stream 1 funding is designed to grow community capacity, research and design, and low-cost street interventions.
Delivered in partnership with Main Roads WA and the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) Streets Alive is a community-led funding program run by the Town Team Movement. The program exists to support collaborative projects that improve local road safety around WA.
Streets Alive are running three free information sessions that are designed to provide an overview of the grants program, provide project inspiration demonstrating a range of successful projects and help participants craft applications for a Stream 1 grant.
North of the river:
- Date: 20 March 2025
- Time: 6.00pm to 7.30pm
- Location: Innaloo Recreation Centre (25 Morris Place, Innaloo WA)
South of the river:
- Date: 2 April 2025
- Time: 6.00pm to 7.30pm
- Location: Cooby CoWork (1/78 Coolbellup Avenue, Coolbellup WA)
Online Information Session:
- Date: 27 March 2025
- Time: 12.00pm to 1.00pm