Rosehill won’t become a mini-city, but there’s a Plan B just down the metro line

The contentious plan to make Rosehill Gardens racecourse a mini-city of 25,000 homes has failed, but the “Plan B” that Premier Chris Minns said he was searching for could be one metro stop away: Sydney Olympic Park.

The former chief planner for NSW has called on the Minns government to develop the hectares of underused public land into a “TOD-like” precinct centred around its future metro station.

An artist’s impression of Sydney Olympic Park in 2050 under the masterplan: the Eastern Neighbourhood.Credit: Sydney Olympic Park Masterplan

Gary White, who was the planning leader for NSW from 2015 to 2019, said the government should rip up an under-review master plan for the site, which he said severely “undercooked” the level of development possible, and replace it with a liberal zoning plan resembling those in the government’s transport-oriented development (TOD) precincts which allow higher buildings.

“Here is what is in effect a greenfield site right in the middle of the metropolitan fabric of Sydney, where you don’t have incredibly fragmented land ownership patterns, where it’s not difficult to assemble realistic development options going forward,” said White, who now works as chief planner at Solve Property, which represents several clients in the affected area. “Just align it with what the government is saying around density and TODs as opposed to putting forward a product that doesn’t necessarily reflect that conversation.”

The call comes following the narrow defeat of a long-mooted plan for the state to purchase Rosehill racecourse, just east of Parramatta, for $5 billion, and turn it into a “mini-city” of 25,000 homes.

But it also comes as the state government and the agency responsible for the Olympic Games area, the Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA), consider a new masterplan that currently budgets for just 13,000 homes. Last month the Herald revealed SOPA was considering seriously increasing zoning allowances to allow more homes in the suburb.

Metro West, which will run between the Sydney CBD and Westmead from 2032, will have a stop at Sydney Olympic Park. Given the line’s “incredible connectivity” to the rest of Sydney, the population needed to be denser, White said.

“We start to look at the population yields that we’re getting, you’re undercooking it … Take it up to a 70,000 population figure, something more attuned to the level of investment that’s gone into crafting that infrastructure.”

White criticised the masterplan’s “very restricting, very suffocating planning model”. It focuses on “outdated” ideas where commercial centres are free of housing and full of office blocks, despite office vacancies in nearby Parramatta at record highs, he said.

He also pointed to multiple planning problems within the document, including one that placed a public school on two parcels of property which his clients have on 99-year leases, and which do not meet minimum size requirements set by the government.

Planning Minister Paul Scully, under whom the park’s agency sits, said the final master plan would be approved “later this year”.

“[It] provides almost 1.2 million square metres of space for new homes, jobs, industry, tourism, and retail, while continuing to host global sporting and entertainment events, coupled with expansive parklands.”

The Sydney Morning Herald has opened its bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email [e-mail] with news tips.