Forecaz demonstrates Missing Middle housing forecasting to Housing Diversity Community Practice Group
- Team Forecaz
- Oct 17, 2024
- 3 min read
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
SEQ needs to deliver 665 new dwellings per week to 2046, with 60% of that growth in attached dwellings. AI-driven urban growth modelling gives councils a property-level forecast of where and when specific housing types, including Gentle Density/Missing Middle forms, will realistically be delivered across their LGA.
The Forecaz platform assesses each parcel against weighted development factors to produce a Development Desirability Index, giving planners and decision-makers a spatially grounded, evidence-based view of housing diversity delivery that supports policy design, zoning decisions, and responses to regional dwelling diversity sub-targets.
Forecaz CEO Bradley Rasmussen presented to the Housing Diversity Community Practice Group at the Council of Mayors (SEQ), demonstrating how AI-driven urban growth modelling forecasts the realistic delivery of Gentle Density/Missing Middle and housing diversity across Local Government Area inner suburbs at a granular, property-level scale.
The Regional Plan Growth Challenge
The Housing Diversity Community Practice group brought planning professionals together at the office of Council of Mayors (SEQ) to discuss housing policy and the tools available to support it. The session included discussion of Queensland's secondary dwellings code, currently out for public consultation, and a presentation from Bradley Rasmussen on how AI is changing the way planners and decision-makers forecast future housing density and development propensity.
The context driving the group's work is well established. The ShapingSEQ Regional Plan projects SEQ's population will grow from 3.7 million to 5.9 million by 2046. Meeting that growth target requires 665 new dwellings every week for the next 25 years, with 60% of new dwelling growth expected to come from attached dwellings. The plan assigns specific dwelling diversity sub-targets to each Local Government, with low-rise attached housing, the Gentle Density/Missing Middle category, making up 29% of the projected new dwelling mix.
The group's shared view is that achieving those targets will require meaningfully more housing density and diversity within established inner urban areas. The question the group is working to answer is not whether density is needed, but how to plan for it, zone for it, and forecast its realistic delivery with confidence.
Applying AI and Bayesian Network Modelling
Bradley's presentation addressed that question directly. The Forecaz platform applies AI and Bayesian Network modelling to produce property-level forecasts of where and when different housing types will be delivered across a Local Government Area. The platform does not assume all zoned land will develop. Instead, it assesses each parcel against weighted development factors, including site coverage, street frontage, lot size, zoning, infrastructure proximity, and land ownership characteristics, to produce a Development Desirability Index that drives each property's development propensity score.
Importance for Gentle Density / Missing Middle Planning
For Gentle Density/Missing Middle forecasting specifically, this level of granularity matters. Up-zoning an inner suburb for low-rise attached dwellings creates theoretical development capacity across a large number of lots. The model identifies which of those lots have the physical and market characteristics to actually attract redevelopment, which will remain as single dwellings regardless of zoning, and which could become candidates for parcel amalgamation. The result is a realistic forecast of housing type delivery across five-year projection periods, mapped at the lot level across the full LGA extent.
Policy and Planning Implications
For the Housing Diversity Community Practice, this capability connects directly to the policy work underway on housing diversity. When a council is designing a secondary dwellings code, testing a Gentle Density overlay, or responding to regional dwelling diversity sub-targets, having a model that shows the realistic delivery of specific housing types in specific locations over time gives planners and elected decision-makers a far more grounded evidence base than broad projection assumptions.
Forecaz thanks Jackson Hills for the invitation to present to the group and looks forward to continued engagement with Housing Diversity Community Practice group as the region works toward its 2046 growth targets.
Bradley’s post on LinkedIn
Planning for the State’s dwelling diversity targets requires more than zoning.