‘Blight Sydney for generations’: City unleashes on fast-tracked housing

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has warned the state government’s new Housing Development Authority will allow “poor quality homes that will blight Sydney for generations to come”, accusing the body of lacking transparency and failing to consider residents’ needs.

Premier Chris Minns established the Housing Development Authority (HDA) in November to fast-track new homes, allowing major projects to bypass local councils.

Clover Moore has slammed the Housing Delivery Authority for waving through Zetland and Surry Hills developments.

But in a scathing, nearly 2000-word speech to be delivered at Monday’s council meeting, Moore will tell councillors the HDA is a “step backwards” in attempts to solve the city’s housing crisis, and call on the authority to consult councils on applications in their area.

“I strongly believe that denser cities can be the healthiest, greenest, and most stimulating places for people to live with the least environmental impact – but only if they are well-designed, liveable, and communities have access to essential services,” she wrote in her mayoral minute.

Moore, chiefly concerned with the process by which developers apply to have their projects assessed by the authority, described it as a “panel of bureaucrats, not accountable to the community”.

She said the HDA – made up of Planning Department secretary Kiersten Fishburn, Premier’s Department secretary Simon Draper, and Infrastructure NSW chief executive Tom Gellibrand – lacked transparency.

“Councils and communities learn whether they are affected only from the minutes of closed-door meetings,” she wrote.

The HDA’s meetings, which consider expressions of interest for projects worth more than $60 million, are recorded, and full transcriptions and detailed meeting minutes are published online. If it recommends any projects to be processed as state-significant developments, the planning minister must give final approval.

Planning Minister Paul Scully had a blunt response to Moore’s complaints.

“Let’s get this straight, the minutes of these meetings and a transcript of the discussion are both published,” he said. “An expression of interest with the Housing Delivery Authority is not a development approval.

“And, like every other state-significant development, assessment will follow relevant strategic planning standards, design standards and allow for public consultation.”

DA approved, then a ‘second bite’

The HDA has received three expressions of interest for projects within the City of Sydney. It recommended two, in Zetland and Surry Hills, be processed as state-significant developments. But Moore highlighted the third, now under consideration by the board, as an example of how things could go wrong.

In 2023, the City of Sydney approved a DA for the site of the now-shut Verona Cinema on Oxford Street in Paddington. The developer had been granted extra floor space by the council under new planning controls that allowed more units if it made space for cultural and creative spaces (in this case, retaining the cinema).

After the HDA began operating, the developer submitted an expression of interest to the authority seeking to build higher without needing a cultural space.

Moore wrote in the minute the new application would “only [deliver] a net increase of 23 dwellings” while losing the cinema, “an important community need”.

The City of Sydney-approved plan for the revamped Verona cinema on Oxford Street. But a plan for more units is before the HDA.

“We know culture and nightlife are a priority for the NSW government, but this risks being overridden by these ad-hoc planning changes,” she wrote. “This could tear up our agreed long-term planning efforts to support cultural and creative industries on Oxford Street.”

The HDA has deferred that development for further consideration while noting “there may be benefit in the application progressing through the City of Sydney”.

She said the council had spent years creating extensive and detailed plans for high-density housing in Zetland, but one plan lodged under the HDA for 1200 new units across nine buildings risked losing “retail and services, businesses, entertainment and genuine affordable housing”.

The overriding of council plans meant developers got “a second bite at increased density on sites which are often already maxed out on development potential”.

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