Report finds NSW needs to choose between infastructure or housing projects

The Premier has shot down a landmark report suggesting he put public projects like the Metro, school and hospitals on ice in order to build more houses, saying he doesn’t “have a choice” but to continue.

Chris Minns has shot down a landmark report suggesting he put public projects like the Metro, school and hospitals on ice in order to build more houses, saying he doesn’t “have a choice” but to continue.

Mr Minns on Wednesday vowed the massive infrastructure projects won’t be put on the backburner in order to meet an ambitious five-year housing target.

A landmark report into housing supply challenges released today recommended the government reprioritise public infrastructure to allow for more houses to be built quickly.

It found the state will drastically fail to meet its five-year housing targets of 377,000 unless major changes to the system are made. Current forecasts predict NSW will only build 172,900 homes in that time.

The NSW Government hopes to build 377,000 homes in five years. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

“We are well into Metro West for example so it wouldn’t be possible to say that project is now stalled or delayed,” he told a pro-housing conference in Parramatta.

“We’d be wasting a lot of money but we don’t have time.

“I acknowledge it as one of the reasons why housing costs have increased but we don’t have a choice though.

Instead the Premier flagged he would introduce a tranche of reforms into parliament in the coming weeks bringing all government departments into line to speed up housing.

The concurrence reforms will be designed to bring intransigent departments into line, preventing approvals from languishing on a bureaucrats desk waiting for a sign off.

“Many of the decisions the government needs to make aren’t in the planning department, they may be in roads, they might be in transport,” he said.

“We’ve just got to speed that up.”

In order to meet the target, public infastructure projects might need to be put on hold. Picture: Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Mr Minns said he would release the details of the reforms at a later time.

While the Premier said he would not deprioritise public infrastructure he also gave no assurances the mass shortage of skilled construction workers would be fixed, instead saying more would be freed up to build homes when Metro projects come online. He also said he hoped for more skilled migration in the state to fix the problem.

“We’d also love to have a bigger say in terms of inbound migration from the Commonwealth government because having skilled workers, skilled labourers in the construction sector is absolutely crucial,” he said.

The report found NSW will only build 172,900 homes in the time frame at the current rate. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers

Mr Minns also indicated he would not look at expanding the Transport Oriented Development zones further in the Northern as eastern suburbs as recommended by the report.

“I’d be happy to do it,” he said.

“But the limiting factor is enabling infrastructure, mainly sewerage and potable water.

“But that doesn’t mean that’s the end of infill development - I suspect in the years ahead you’ll see more rezoning of places closer to the city that are on existing public transport lines.”

Originally published as Report finds NSW needs to choose between infastructure or housing projects