‘I can’t give you a date’: Land audit yet to unearth any sites for housing

An urgent cross-government audit of public land to find locations for new housing is yet to sign off on a single one, nine months after it began, with the minister in charge saying it is “unreasonable” to ask for a time frame.

Premier Chris Minns said the audit would be completed within months when he tasked government agencies with identifying surplus land in May, as part of his priority of improving housing supply in the state.

“This questioning is just unreasonable”: Minister for Lands and Property Steve Kamper objected to a Liberal line of questioning.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Bureaucrats told a budget estimates hearing on Tuesday the “ongoing” review had canvassed 4300 sites, of which 300 had progressed to a due diligence stage. Not all of those sites would be suitable for housing, they said, and none have been decided by the government.

Lands and Property Minister Stephen Kamper brushed off questions from the Liberal opposition about whether the government had projections for when the scheme might progress. “I can’t give you a date for when a house is going to be built,” he said. “This questioning is just unreasonable.”

Kamper was unable to answer several questions about the audit, including whether the recent transport-oriented development program and other housing reforms would affect the properties selected. “Minister, the answer is yes,” Planning Department deputy secretary Leon Walker said.

Asked whether he had made any recommendations to governance committees managing the audit about land that could be transferred, Kamper said he would take the question on notice. “Yes is the answer,” Walker assisted.

Premier Chris Minns promised the land audit would be completed within months.Credit: Steven Siewert

Opposition planning spokesman Scott Farlow said the hearing showed Kamper was “simply not across his brief” and the audit was a shambles. “We’re now nine months down the track, and the government has failed to identify a single parcel of land that could be developed for housing.”

However, the Liberal Party has been critical of many of the state government’s reforms to encourage housing supply, and accuses it of privatising public land by planning to redevelop it for market housing. The government rejects the notion such development constitutes privatisation.

On Tuesday evening a government spokesperson said a decision had been made to prioritise the transport-oriented development program and reforms to medium density housing over the land audit.

They said the first tranche of the audit was complete and would yield “the potential for several thousand dwellings to be delivered across a number of NSW government surplus landholdings”.

“A land audit of this scale is complex and its needs to be done right, with prioritisation of sites and final decision-making needing to be made across the government,” the spokesperson said.

Minns’ May directive asked government departments, agencies and state-owned corporations to audit their landholdings for surplus sites that could be redeveloped for housing, to address the state’s shortage of new homes.

Walker told Tuesday’s hearing about 300 sites had progressed to the due diligence stage, though some would be viable for open space or commercial development rather than residential.

“It’s not just about putting more housing out there. For housing you need parks, you need open space, you need hospitals, schools,” he said.

Walker also revealed some sites identified by the audit were already listed years ago as underutilised or surplus to requirements. “Even under the previous government those sites were constantly being put forward to try to get a better or more productive use,” he said.

Bureaucrats advised the number of sites proceeding to due diligence was reduced by factors such as flood or bushfire risk, contamination, biodiversity and zoning.

“We’re deliberately not wasting taxpayer money by putting forward sites that are realistically never going to be suitable for residential development,” Walker said.

Asked whether government agencies, including state-owned corporations, were co-operative with the land audit, Walker responded: “I would say we’ve gone through a learning process.”

Last week, the Labor-controlled Inner West Council called on Minns to release the results of the “long-awaited” audit, naming it as an area where the state government must improve its own contribution to housing supply.

The council was joined by Tom Forrest, head of the Urban Taskforce, which represents developers. “We’re keen for it to be progressed as quickly as possible,” he said. “Every contribution to housing supply is of the essence when we’re in the middle of a crisis.”