James O’Doherty: Targets no quick fix for our housing horror show

Chris Minns has staked his premiership on getting housing moving again, but targets won’t solve the problem if nothing is getting built, writes James O’Doherty.

If you really want to understand how deep the opposition to increased density runs in some areas of Sydney, just look to the north, and the leafy suburbs of Ku-ring-gai.

So opposed to higher density is the council that it has spent, on one estimate, hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the state’s plans for manor homes and mid-rise apartment blocks around transport hubs.

Ku-ring-gai was one of the local government areas (LGAs) that copped the brunt of Premier Chris Minns’s revamped housing targets on Wednesday. The council had its five-year housing target almost triple, from 3000 to 7600 dwellings. Homes already in the planning pipeline account for just 20 per cent of that total, leaving the council with a long way to go to meet the targets it has been set.

But considering the council is taking the state government to court in an attempt to oppose increased density, there is no sign Ku-ring-gai will go close to meeting the targets it has been set.

Hills Shire Council Mayor Peter Gangemi. Picture: Facebook

That is the Catch-22 for the Premier in his plans to tackle Sydney’s housing crisis: hopes of success are pinned on some councils that have so-far pulled out all stops to oppose development.

While Minns has offered a $200m carrot in the form of grant funding for councils that play ball, there is no clear penalty for councils that fail — or refuse — to meet the newly imposed targets.

The high density suburb of Wentworth Point is an example of what happens if you build housing but not the infrastructure to go with it. Picture: Monique Harmer

“I think you’ll find that councils and mayors understand that they’ve got a role to play,” Planning Minister Paul Scully optimistically declared on Thursday.

Scully insisted that the state government has “measures” it can take to ensure councils meet their targets, including public naming and shaming in the form of development league tables.

In the most “extreme” cases, he said, the state government can appoint a planning “administrator” to take matters out of the hands of councillors.

But, asked by my colleague Lachlan Leeming what it would take to trigger the “extreme” approach, Scully would not speculate.

“It would have to be a sustained effort not to be involved and be part and parcel of the solution,” he said.

Admittedly, not all of the backlash to Minns’s housing targets can be blamed on NIMBYism.

In some booming centres, population growth has simply outstripped investment in basic amenities like roads and schools.

The Hills Shire has the biggest single housing target; it is expected to deliver 23,300 new homes by 2029.

Hill Shire Mayor Peter Gangemi calls that target “unfeasible and unreasonable”.

Gangemi tells me that his council would need anywhere up to $900m in infrastructure spending to support the number of homes the government wants it to approve.

He cites the suburb of Box Hill, which has been all but forgotten by successive governments when it comes to infrastructure spending.

Parents in Box Hill already face a 90-minute round trip to drop their kids off at the local catchment primary school, because the former government failed to keep up with population growth.

Chris Minns has staked his premiership on housing. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

All of this goes to show that houses are not built by best intentions.

Setting lofty targets is one thing, but the proof will be in the pudding — and considering the trend of recent dwelling approvals, Minns’s housing plans are more mud-cake than souffle.

Total dwelling approvals were down 4.5 per cent in April, and on a trend basis approvals were basically flat (up 0.5 per cent).

Liberal leader Mark Speakman makes this salient point.

“You can have all the up-zonings (and) all the targets in the world, but unless it is financially viable to build new dwellings, they just won’t happen,” he says.

When it comes to incentivising developers to actually build, the Minns government has one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake.

Billions of dollars the government is collecting in “contributions” from developers, tough new “sustainability standards,” and reams of bureaucratic red tape are making new apartment complexes increasingly commercially unviable.

Last year, Minns promised a “French Revolution” to reimagine Sydney with Parisian-style mid-rise apartment blocks. This has now become, to borrow from the French, his raison d’être: Minns’ reason for being.

His future is riding on success.

Do you have a story for The Daily Telegraph? Message 0481 056 618 or email [e-mail]