Planning Minister Anthony Roberts: ‘Don’t worry about or fear density’

Planning Minister Anthony Roberts and counterpart Tania Mihailuk have gone to war over Sydney’s booming population density, with Ms Mihailuk accusing the state government of allowing “high-rise monstrosities”. MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL

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Don’t fear density. That’s the message from Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, who has hit back at accusations his government has “opened the floodgates to overdevelopment” and allowed high-rise “monstrosities”.

With 104 days until the March 23 state election, overdevelopment, population growth and congestion have become major pressure points for the Berejiklian government.

Delays in the CBD Light Rail construction, transport congestion, council resistance to densification of suburbs and the recent announcement of a public inquiry into overdevelopment in Ryde have only added to the problem.

Record levels of immigration also haven’t helped.

Planning Minister Anthony Roberts. Picture: Troy Snook

But Mr Roberts told The Sunday Telegraph that increasing population density was nothing to worry about of itself.

“Some of the most liveable suburbs in Sydney are also some of the most dense, including Elizabeth Bay, Paddington and Kirribilli,” he said.

“We do not have to have a city where everything is around the Sydney CBD itself. That is our legacy.

“When I was university in the 90s we would have friends travelling from Penrith to Broadway because that is the only place where they could go to university.

“Now we have universities in Blacktown and Penrith where people are three minutes away from university.”

Mr Roberts said density must be accompanied by infrastructure.

The government is pinning its hopes on creating major cities that don’t take people more than 30-minutes to get to — with Parramatta and the new Badgerys Creek airport becoming CBDs in their own right.

But it also means some suburbs becoming unrecognisable.

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NSW Opposition planning spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said the state government had been asleep at the wheel.

“The Liberals have had ample opportunity to reform the planning system for eight long years, at best they’ve tinkered around the edges while opening the floodgates to rampant over-development in many parts of Sydney,” she said.

Opposition Planning spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk. Picture Angelo Velardo

“Sydney is a growing global city, but under this government’s watch there has been absolutely no effort put into managing this growth or ensuring it is done fairly.”

Ms Mihailuk blamed the government for allowing “monstrosities” to be developed, where apartment blocks crowd the footpath and become an eyesore instead of a centrepiece.

“The government architect has done some fantastic work on better building design but the Berejiklian government has ignored much of their direction,” she said.

The state government plans to build 196,750 dwellings in Greater Sydney between now and 2022. To put that in perspective, that’s 10 per cent of the 1,858,611 dwellings that currently exist.

Parramatta, Blacktown, Sydney, Camden and Canterbury-Bankstown will carry most of the load (81.650), while Hunters Hill, Mosman and Woollahra will build 750 dwellings between them.

At next week’s COAG meeting in Adelaide Commonwealth and state governments will discuss a new framework for better managing the impacts of population growth.