The ACT government is to revise flawed overshadowing regulations that builders and home owners say are contributing to Canberra's housing affordability crisis.
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The two-year-old solar access provisions could add from $15,000 to $50,000 to the cost of building a home in Canberra, Fairfax Media was told.
Marc Roland, the residential chairman of Master Builders ACT, said since the regulations were introduced under Variation 306 to the Territory Plan in July, 2013, whole streets of houses had been dug down below pavement level.
The results were higher costs, unsafe streetscapes and ongoing drainage issues when it was already almost impossible for first home buyers to source affordable free-standing properties with backyards, he said.
Mr Roland said the solar access provisions arose from concessions to the Greens and were a "green tax" of dubious utility.
"The result is the same as if everybody just built at street level," he said.
ACT Greens minister Shane Rattenbury rejected this, saying nobody disputed solar access, that 21st century home buyers wanted guaranteed light and passive heating and planners and builders should accept some blame for poor outcomes.
"The building industry hasn't adapted [to Variation 306] well," he said. "Builders and designers could do a better job of telling people what type of house would work best on their block or, if they haven't bought, what type of block would be best for the house they want to build."
ACT Planning Minister Mick Gentleman said there had been "a diversity of views" about solar access and the government had been listening.
The Environment and Planning Directorate was "finalising . . . options for revised solar access provisions . . . that maintain the important policy objectives, but [will be] delivered in a different way, responding to feedback".
If approved by the minister, the preferred revisions would be incorporated into another Territory Plan variation that would be open for public consultation.
Matt Smith of Ngunnawal's Goldruby Homes said the existing regulations could hit home builders very hard, particularly as subdivisions moved off the valley floors and onto Canberra's rocky slopes.
He cited the case of one couple who had to dig their garage in under the house to comply.
"The original estimate for the cut was $25,000," he said. "When the excavator started digging, they struck rock and the cost blew out by another $23,000. There are retaining walls on top of this."
Mr Smith's clients were able to go back to their bank for extra funds; an option not open to first home buyers at the top of their borrowing capacity.
"If they had been first home buyers, it would have bankrupted them," he said.
Home builders dig down to lower the final height of the finished house and reduce the shadow that falls on their neighbour's block.
Mr Roland and Mr Smith said while this was fine in principle, the benefit was lost when the neighbour sank their house for the same reason.
Mr Gentleman said it only became an issue when people chose to "maximise the potential of the land through the addition of a second storey".
Mr Roland said given the high prices being asked for blocks by the ACT government's Land Development Authority, no owner could afford to not "maximise the potential of their land".
Mr Rattenbury said people wanting large homes should buy blocks where the shadow fell across the street, not the house next door.
"I am open to changes [to the solar access provisions] that make it easier for home builders as long as they don't undermine the intent of the regulation," he said.
Kirk Coningham, the executive director of Master Builders ACT, said the challenges would only get harder.
"We have built out the valley floors," he said. "The slopes are all that is left."
