Sydney needs to reach for the sky to fix housing shortage, says Minns

NSW Premier Chris Minns has warned that urban sprawl will stop Sydney from being a leading global city and insists that building up – not out – will be key to creating a vibrant, young metropolis.

“We have to go up,” Minns said. “Sydney can’t grow by adding another street to the western fringe of Sydney every other week … [because] you have to stretch social infrastructure over a bigger and bigger plane.

NSW Premier Chris Minns says Sydney needs to be more parochial.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

“I think the best way to ensure we protect open space is to have buildings that go up and don’t encroach on much loved parkland.”

In a clear message to anti-development groups, Minns said quality apartment buildings located on transport links would be critical to Sydney’s future, as the housing crisis threatens to drive away young people.

Minns said apartment approvals in Sydney were at the lowest levels since 2014 “at the exact same time as we have a housing crisis”, adding urban consolidation was a concept with which Sydneysiders had to become more comfortable.

Outlining his vision at The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sydney 2050 summit on Monday, Minns said he wanted a youthful city, attracting and retaining young people who wanted to live and build their careers in Sydney.

Apartment buildings in the inner city suburb of Pyrmont.Credit: Oscar Colman

He said Sydneysiders needed to be more parochial in a manner similar to New Yorkers about their home city.

“Young people feel that, if they can make it in Sydney, they can make it anywhere and part of the challenge is ensuring young people believe they have a future in Sydney and that will be a big challenge for the NSW government,” Minns said.

However, Minns said a lack of affordable housing would have devastating economic and cultural impacts on Sydney and would be the single biggest impediment to the city’s growth.

“Forget about owning a home, it’s now become impossible to even rent a home,” Minns said.

“The implications for the economy are devastating, not to mention the cultural impacts for an entire generation of young people who are saying ‘this city is not for me’.

Minns said the government had already introduced legislation to change the rental laws, including portable bonds for tenants and banning secret rent bidding. However, supply remained a critical issue facing the newly elected government.

NSW will fail to meet its obligations under the National Housing Accord to build 314,000 new homes over the next five years, with the planning department forecasting just 180,000.

As a result, Minns has instructed his ministers to urgently find vacant blocks of public land to rezone for housing as part of a push to turn around the state’s flagging supply of new homes.

However, the premier said Sydney had to rethink where it was adding homes and claiming the city had run out of room was not an option, nor an approach taken by London or New York.

“We don’t see the mayor of New York saying ‘Manhattan is full, we can’t have any more buildings, we’re done, we’ll have to build in Hoboken [New Jersey],’ ” Minns said.

The premier said one of the best appointments the previous government made was Building Commissioner David Chandler, who was tasked to ensure buildings were “up to scratch” to give confidence that quality apartments could be delivered in Sydney.

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