A peak body is calling for the merger of several ACT government portfolios to streamline housing and make construction pathways easier.
The Housing Industry Association's (HIA) territory division wants housing, building, city services and planning to be placed in one "super" portfolio following the October election.
The current division of portfolios creates "inefficiencies" and "duplication" when building housing stock, HIA ACT chief executive, Greg Weller, said.
"It is not a criticism of each of those ministers. But there is a lot of cross-over between building and planning in the ACT," Mr Weller said.
"Decisions are getting made in separate portfolios and no one is really saying: 'What does this decision or action look like for the cost of housing in Canberra?'."
Mr Weller was particularly concerned about areas like consultation for mandated seven-star energy ratings, which have pushed constructions costs of new builds up.
Other areas of concern raised include land release and costing long with the management of trees on approved building sites.
He said that the proposed single minister needs to make sure that we build enough homes, and that those homes are the homes that people want in Canberra.
"They need to be affordable, most importantly," he said.
The ACT is contributing to a federal goal of 1.2 million new homes by June 2029.
This includes the construction of 175 affordable homes in the territory.
"The [territory] government has set high goals around how much housing is going to be delivered over the next five or six years, which we certainly think is a good objective," Mr Weller said.
"But we are not going to do that if we just stick with the status quo."
The HIA is yet to release specific policy requests ahead of the October election.
Colliers' head of capital markets ACT, Matthew Winter, said if a merge of portfolios was to occur, it would hopefully help to remove "red tape" hindering ACT development.
"In the commercial sector, we have seen cases of owners looking to vary Crown leases, remove concessional provisions or adaptively reuse ageing buildings," Mr Winter said.
"My understanding is that the current planning process is painstakingly slow."
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said no changes to administrative arrangements are expected between now and election day.
"Future administrative arrangements will be determined after the first Legislative Assembly sitting has concluded and a Chief Minister has been elected on the floor of the assembly," he told The Canberra Times.
"Depending on the outcome of the election, for ACT Labor the shape of future administrative arrangements will be impacted by the number of ministers and the number of portfolios each is expected to hold."
