Developers want more land on urban fringe PROPERTY developers are demanding a rolling stock of land on the urban fringe of Australia's capital cities to make homes more affordable. In a new report on land supply, industry lobby group Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDAI) says the gap is growing between supply and demand for housing and the federal government must force cities to keep a "rolling stock" of development-ready land. At the launch of the report in Melbourne, a property expert went further and called for the government to give away free blocks of land to new home buyers for 10 years to reduce house prices. Strategic planning company chairman Brian Haratsis said homeowners could then buy the free land at the original price after making a dent in the mortgage. "After ten years, home owners would be given the choice of buying the land ... selling the house and land package, or renting the land," Mr Haratsis said. But Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy said the state government did not have any land it could give away and insisted planning reforms were the best way to deal with housing affordability. "Giving away land is not necessarily going to be the silver bullet answer," Mr Guy told reporters. Planning structures are the greatest level of time delay in getting houses, homes, rental properties to market. He instead announced three new planning zones to come into place on July 1, including a neighbourhood zone that restricts development to eight metres, a general residential zone for mixed development and a residential growth zone to encourage investment.