From zero to $5 billion: Premier denies 15-year mini-city ‘land flip’ will hit budget

The Minns government would “flip” the 25-hectare Rosehill Racecourse site over a span of at least 15 years, as Premier Chris Minns denied it would be a drag on the state’s balance sheet.

The premier has also defended the proposal for taxpayers to buy the land for $5 billion, saying it would not be a major departure from the original plan for the site.

Australian Turf Club members will next month vote on whether to push ahead with the proposal to sell Rosehill Racecourse.

Rosehill Gardens at first light on Thursday.Credit: Nick Moir

The plan – which has proven bitterly divisive within the racing industry in NSW – was first floated by the Australian Turf Club and Minns in 2023 and would see the racecourse turned into a mini-city of 25,000 homes and a new metro station would be built at Rosehill.

Earlier this month, the ATC released a revised plan that asked the government to buy the land for at least $5 billion, which it said would mean “eliminating development risk” for the club.

That marked a dramatic shift from the proposal announced by Minns in December 2023. At the time, Minns said the sale of the land would not cost taxpayers anything because the ATC would sell it to a private developer.

“Zero. Nothing,” he said in 2023 when asked how much the sale of the land would cost taxpayers.

“ATC owns this; they’ll be rezoning it, they’ll be developing it themselves.”

But while the proposal still has to be voted on by ATC members, Minns denied the $5 billion outlay for the site would represent a major shift because the government would ultimately on-sell the land over “a prolonged period of time”, meaning “it isn’t going onto the government balance sheet”.

“Ultimately, we’d be flipping the land,” he said.

“I think the ATC recommendation to members is 15 years as a sale period. The period of time in which we would then sell the land off into the public would be beyond that potentially.”

Despite some within the ATC questioning the $5 billion price tag on the land, Minns again ruled out compulsory acquiring the racecourse – a step which would allow a price to be set by the NSW Valuer General – because it would “completely trample all over the membership rights of ATC members”.

“We’ve said from the very beginning; it’s their decision, it’s their call; we’ll live and die by what they decide in the end. But I don’t regret the process. I mean, I think we’ve got to go for it. We have to do more of this in Sydney. We have to have more opportunities for housing … It’s what great cities around the world do,” he said.

Asked why taxpayers should take on the risk of developing the land when the ATC wouldn’t, Minns said: “I don’t think it’s a big risk for us. We control zoning; we control planning, and we will put a station in.

“We have to take more chances, not less chances, when it comes to housing,” he said.

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