New home development plans for south west Sydney amid housing supply crisis

Sydney will be flooded with 18,000 new homes to help ease property price pressure as the government concedes we are facing a supply crisis.

South west Sydney will be flooded with 18,000 new homes to alleviate property price pressures as the government concedes our city faces a housing supply crisis.

Immediate moves have been made to fast track the development of housing at Glenfield, Lowes Creek Maryland and Leppington with Planning Minister Rob Stokes issuing an order that the greenfield areas are ­rezoned in time for spring.

Prospective first homebuyer Andy Clark and his girlfriend have good secure jobs and savings but still finding themselves increasingly shut out of the Sydney housing market by the high prices. Picture: Richard Dobson

In a speech on Thursday to the Urban Development Institute, Mr Stokes will concede housing has not been progressing as quickly as needed.

He said on Wednesday the “huge pressure from the owner ­occupier market was not foreseen until the pandemic”.

“The focus is now on new, greenfield housing supply, particularly in the south west,” Mr Stokes said.

The Government has been under increasing pressure from developers over stalled land supply.

“As a result of the pandemic, demand for greenfield housing has gone up,” Mr Stokes said.

“That’s where people want to live and we are responding with new greenfield areas — Wilton, Glenfield, Leppington and Lowes Creek. My ­expectation is that these greenfield areas be delivered in time for spring.”

The new suburb of Willowdale in Sydney's south west. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Stokes will say in Thursday’s speech he has shifted his focus to housing supply, noting the extraordinary state of the housing market is “proof something needs to be done”.

“It’s plain economics. We need supply to meet the current demand,” he will say.

The precincts announced on Thursday include:

• 7000 dwellings at Glenfield with six playing fields, 30ha of open space, a new town centre and building heights up to 12 storeys;

• 7000 dwellings at Lowes Creek Maryland, with 60ha of open space, 21 parks and public open spaces, six new playing  fields  and a combined primary and high school;

• 2400 dwellings at Leppington with 8.32ha of open space, 2.96ha identified for a school site and 23.18ha of land zoned for other infrastructure, and

• 1600 dwellings at Wilton Town Centre precinct with 17ha of employment land that could support 4700 jobs.

Mr Stokes will note work is not progressing at the speed in which the state needs to provide solutions for the housing crisis.

“I’ve seen the need for ­immediate action in progressing rezoning that ensure ­continued supply of housing,” he said.

Mr Stokes cautioned that greenfield sites require supply of infrastructure, including water pipelines, electricity, sewerage, roads, schools and open space, along with the supply of raw materials and skilled workers needed to build homes.

Andy Clark, 27, has a “good job”, working as a fly-in fly-out surveyor in central Queensland, and has a healthy deposit.

Yet the prospective first home buyer is one of the thousands who has struggled to get a foot in Sydney’s runaway housing market.

He welcomed the potential of more housing supply.

“It gives us more options, I guess, and perhaps makes it a bit more of an even competition,” Mr Clark said.