The Minns government’s signature density reforms around train stations will be expanded, adding an extra six stations to the existing 31 after several councils asked for more suburbs to be included.
Belmore, Lakemba and Punchbowl stations will be added, as well as Cardiff and Cockle Creek near Newcastle, and Woy Woy on the Central Coast. All six were suggested by the local councils for inclusion.
The bulk of reforms, which will amend planning controls to allow six-storey residential apartment buildings within 400 metres of the station in the 37 chosen suburbs, are due to start this month.
Ku-ring-gai Council was one council that did not work with NSW government on its density plans.Credit: Steven Siewert
However, several will be delayed, including Gosford and Rockdale, because some councils are midway through their own plans which will deliver more housing than the government’s transport-oriented development (TOD) program.
Planning Minister Paul Scully confirmed last month he would offer deferrals where councils were working on their own schemes, but they would need to deliver more homes than the government’s plan.
The length of the deferral “depends on the circumstances” but would not be “wholesale delays”.
The government says 75 per cent of the transport density sites will be subject to the reforms by the end of this year, although North Wollongong, St Marys and Wiley Park have been pushed out until mid next year.
The new timeline deviates from the plan outlined in the original TOD documents, which said the planning controls would begin at all stations in April, and remain in place “until councils have finalised their strategic planning in ways that align with the NSW government[’s] policy objectives”.
The government will also work with Wollongong Council to investigate Coniston and Unanderra as extra stations once analysis of the water and wastewater capacity is determined. It will also continue to work with Inner West Council on their nominated sites for social housing.
The government said local housing plans will be developed with 12 of the 13 councils earmarked for the density increase but Ku-ring-gai Council which has four stations affected by the program – Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon – did not work with the government on plans for its area.
Ku-ring-gai Council has been hugely resistant to the government’s housing overhaul, which will create 170,000 homes across the 37 train stations over 15 years. The local north shore residents’ group says there is no evidence that the government’s plans would improve affordability.
However, a NSW Productivity Commission paper last year found housing scarcity in Sydney drove up prices and rents, and the best way to counter this was increasing density and building heights in areas with existing infrastructure closer to the city.
Under the ambitious National Housing Accord targets, NSW needs to build 378,000 new homes by 2029 or about 76,000 a year. Premier Chris Minns has acknowledged that the state would struggle to meet that annual figure.
However, Minns said he was “absolutely committed to confronting the housing crisis head on.
“For too long housing has been put in the too hard basket,” Minns said.
“If we don’t build more houses, young people will up and leave because they can’t afford a home in NSW. And if we lose our young people, we lose our future.”
A separate report from the Productivity Commission last month highlighted the impact of high rental prices in Sydney, which it said has led to a mass exodus of people aged 30 to 40.
It prompted commissioner Peter Achterstraat to warn: “If we don’t act we could become a city with no grandchildren.”
The third report on housing from the commission, titled What we gain by building more homes in the right places, concluded greater density in areas closer to Sydney’s CBD had both financial and equity imperatives, saying the biggest gains would flow to low- and middle-income earners.
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