Everyone agrees these vacant lots should become units. But public housing? That depends

Inner West Council will push the state government to urgently rezone former WestConnex sites on Parramatta Road for high-density apartments, but Greens and Labor councillors disagree over how much should comprise public housing.

Years after being cleared for construction of the WestConnex tunnel’s initial stages, large blocks of land on Parramatta Road remain locked up with no use. Last month, the state government announced one, in Camperdown, would be transformed into 500 units, including 200 for essential workers.

The former dive sites for the WestConnex on Parramatta Road will eventually be turned into housing.Credit: Nick Moir

The other sites, in Ashfield and Haberfield, have been identified for potential new housing as part of the state government’s land audit, but no announcements have so far been made about their future.

Labor councillor Philippa Scott successfully moved a motion at the council’s Tuesday meeting, calling on the government to prioritise rezoning the areas for high-density housing.

She said the sites should be rezoned for “mixed-use and mixed-market residential development”, including a “significant portion of government-owned affordable and low-income rental housing” to be built by the government’s developer, Landcom.

Greens councillors voted against the motion, arguing the only appropriate use for the sites was 100 per cent public housing.

Greens councillor Izabella Antoniou, who has represented the party on council since October, moved an amendment for Inner West Council to call for the developments to be exclusively public housing, saying “the mixed-market element is a huge concern”.

“We have so few examples in the inner west of publicly owned land that we can actually put a solid amount of public housing on, and we need to be using these opportunities,” she said. “We need to be pushing the NSW state government [for] 100 per cent public homes [on] public land – not just waving through their agenda. Otherwise, what’s the point of us?”

Scott said the Greens were putting up “spurious arguments as cover for voting against more housing”.

“I’m asking for you to vote for [apartments] on Parramatta Road. If you can’t do it there, then honestly, where can you?”

Scott said placing concentrated public housing in one location, rather than spreading it throughout suburbs represented an old-fashioned model of housing.

The state government has committed to turn 30 per cent of its new housing land into public housing. But Kobi Shetty, the Greens member for Balmain, said failing to add a significant amount more in the inner city would create “a two-tiered system where public housing residents are pushed to the outskirts while saving inner-city land for private wealthy residents”.

Minister for Lands and Property Steve Kamper said the sites had been identified as suitable for housing through the state government’s land audit last year, and had been offered to Homes NSW and the government’s developer, Landcom.

“The Minns Labor government is pulling every lever available to ensure we address the housing crisis facing our state,” he said. “It’s disappointing that these councillors are focused on finding even more reasons to oppose much needed new housing.”

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