Sydney housing crisis: Search for land could include Long Bay Jail, Anzac Parade, Parramatta Road
The Minns Government has been challenged to find room for another 75,000 homes per year. There are several options available, but just as many hurdles. Read about them here.
NSW
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As Sydney real estate goes, the sprawling grounds of the 45-hectare ocean-view site of Long Bay jail tick a lot of boxes.
About a half-an-hour drive to the CBD. Close to recreational space. And with the right rezoning, able to support potentially tens of thousands of new apartments.
Replacing the jail with a new one elsewhere would also deal with the millions of dollars having to be spent on maintaining the “leaky”, heritage-listed sandstone complex.
The obstacles? The locals and council are opposed, while it sits in the Labor electorate of Attorney-General Michael Daley. And the long-talked about alternate jail that was to take all the prisoners has never been built.
The site is among thousands of government-owned properties across Sydney that have over the years been contemplated for redevelopment only to be thrown into the too-hard-basket.
But with the Minns Government under pressure to deliver a 75,000-a-year housing target, the pressure is on for some of these sites to be revisited.
In the case of Long Bay, multi-billionaire Meriton director Harry Triguboff – who is also fighting Randwick City Council to put 1800 apartments on a vacant site at nearby Little Bay he bought several years ago – has long eyed the complex, recently describing it as “one of the best sites in Sydney”.
He is the not the first. The Saturday Telegraph is aware of discussions held two decades ago by former Labor ministers about the site, including plans for a Disney facility.
The former Coalition government went so far as to have the site valued, coming up with the now redundant figure of $400 million.
A source familiar with the plans said they entailed preserving the heritage-listed buildings, with a metro to built under the jail.
As for where to relocate the prisoners, the former government explored multiple options – and sites – including building a New York-style high-rise jail close to the city.
But then the pandemic happened, the Coalition was turfed out of government and the plans shelved.
Local opposition is not the only challenge the Minns government faces as its trawls through potential Crown land sites to find potential home sites – there are more than 40,000 Aboriginal land claims that have been made over parcels of land across Sydney, many of which have not been resolved.
One former government MP spoke of how the Coalition undertook an audit of Crown land soon after it came to power, only to find much of it subject to a claim under the Aboriginal land rights Act.
“There is no sunset clause so when a claim is rejected, it can be re-lodged and so no one can do anything with that land,” the source said.
“It’s a scandal.
“A claim can be lodged for any vacant Crown land that is not required for an essential public purpose. That’s what happened to Parramatta jail after it was vacated. A claim went in. It has had a massive impact on the productivity of a land resource.”
According to the Department of Planning and Environment, Crown Lands alone oversees 52,234 hectares of Crown land in the Sydney area, excluding that managed by other government agencies.
It was rumoured that there was once an instruction for the old sandstone Chief Secretary’s building in Macquarie Street to always have a handful of public servants working in it at any given time to ensure it is never deemed “vacant” amid paranoia it could be subject to a land claim.
The other obstacle governments face are local councillors – and some of their own MPs – who fiercely advocate for their residents, especially in suburbs where quarter acre blocks rule.
It is why ideas such scrapping blanket R2 single dwelling zonings in place of assessing individual streets for supporting terraces and townhouses – especially in areas such as Sydney’s Northern Beaches, upper North Shore and the Hills Shire where large blocks are common – are rarely pursued.
However, Housing Now – an alliance of big business, unions and academics – is pushing for the government to allow “mums and dads” to become developer of their own block, pointing to CoreLogic analysis showing it could enable more than 300,000 additional homes to be shoe-horned into Sydney over the next five years.
Business Western Sydney executive director David Borger, who led the creation of Housing Now, said he believed governments should also look at making better use of housing sites around parks.
“We have all these parks ringed by houses, most of which have a fence and their bedrooms facing the them,” he said.
“By putting medium rise apartments around them, we can better share the views and the amenity.”
The Sunday Telegraph revealed last week how the Minns government - backed by independent MP Alex Greenwich and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, wants to convert half of Moore Park Golf Course to turn it into parkland for the estimated 80,000 residents expected to live in the precinct by 2040.
It is a plan former Labor premier Bob Carr - who has long advocated the case for adequate open space for Sydney’s rising population - suggested to Premier Chris Minns earlier this year.
Carr, who in 2000 famously declared Sydney to be “full”, told The Saturday Telegraph how his much-quoted statement was in reference to the “constant pressure” from Canberra to increase immigration, while paying “no attention” on the impact on Sydney’s infrastructure and already congested roads.
“I said Sydney was full to stimulate people to think whether it was good,” he said.
“We tackled that by pumping up infrastructure.”
With regard to the challenge now facing Minns, Carr said the government needed to look at major thoroughfares such as Anzac Parade, Canterbury Rd and Parramatta Rd where “well-designed environmentally cutting edge” high rise residential towers could be built in place of the predominantly single-level shops, even if it required compulsory acquisition.
So passionate is Carr about the idea he has sent Minns and Planning Minister Paul Scully his own snapshots of single-storey development and “strip shops crumbling away” on Anzac Parade, while suggesting a “legal tweak” to enable developers to start converting to high rise.
“If in 18 months time, we are the middle of a land and housing affordability crisis, and you’ve still got crumbling single storey shop fronts along Anzac Parade, that will be a huge failure of policy,” he warned.
“The public accepts that along Sydney’s transport corridors, that’s the place for towers which could be built equal to the best you will find in Scandinavian country, Holland or Germany.
“People can live in apartments, go down in a lift, and take a few steps to a bus stop or metro. It might involve compulsory acquisition where a single owner is holding out against site consolidation that would enable a well-designed tower to be construction … but without intervention, we are just not going to make it. Medium density won’t get you there.”
As for Long Bay jail – which sits in his old electorate of Maroubra and where Carr still resides – he said he had told Triguboff personally to “come back and talk about it when there is a ribbon cutting on a metro station at Malabar”.
Triguboff said Long Bay and Little Bay were “critical” if the Minns government was to meet its housing target, while also declaring it was “not fair” that the local council was failing to meet its own targets leaving the rest of Sydney to carry the burden.
Noting the move to convert half of Moore Park Golf Course into parkland, Triguboff said this could also occur with the nearby golf clubs to ensure the coastal land they sat upon was better utilised
“Minns has signed up so we must do our best to get the housing targets, but it will be very difficult,” Mr Triguboff said in a statement to The Saturday Telegraph.
“Long Bay and my site at Little Bay are critical to meeting the housing supply targets, and our goals are realistic and in line with what has been done before elsewhere like Camellia.
“Now they are changing golf courses to parks so this site couldn’t be any better as there are 180 hectares of golf courses that take up all the coastal public land, but the public cannot use it. We can start developing the golf courses which are not properly utilized. There is also a beautiful beach which the public can’t enjoy because there is no access.”
Mr Triguboff said the council had “consistently failed to meet its targets”, providing less than 10 percent of what it agreed to provide.
While Minns has made it clear he wants to “go up” rather than out, the government has embarked on a land audit to identify vacant sites owned by the government that could support housing.
However, attempts to seize sites from the various departments – Transport for NSW being one of the bigger “landholders – will not be easy with departments reluctant to let go of assets that may one day support a possible infrastructure project and makes the budget look good.
Or where a corporation such as Sydney Water wants to develop its surplus land, there is a blockage by council.
A planning panel report from shows Sydney Water asked Bayside Council in 2017 for permission to develop surplus land at 73 and 75 Gardeners Road, Eastlakes into R4 “high rise residential”.
Bounded by The Lakes Golf Club to the south, and Eastlake Golf Club, the site was largely vacant with a depot, outbuildings and a pump house.
However, council staff declared there was no “strategic merit” for the move, citing heritage issues, flooding, lack of green space and an inconsistency with the character of the local area.
The report also stated that while the two golf courses provided “ visual relief and views” for “a number of the residential properties” the green space was “not available to
the public”.
As a result, precinct had an under supply of local open space to support further development.
The planning panel at the time recommended the Sydney Water proposal “not be forwarded to the Department of Planning and Environment” for a special determination.
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