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Planning Minister warns of 'direct action' against north shore council over housing targets
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes has accused a council on Sydney's north shore of "throwing its toys out of the cot" and has warned he could intervene if it attempts to abandon housing targets.
Mr Stokes said Ku-ring-gai Council had a "shared commitment to meet the requirements of a growing city" in achieving projections for dwellings in the area previously agreed on with the Greater Sydney Commission, which a developer lobby group recently described as "relatively modest".
Planning Minister Rob Stokes has accused Ku-ring-gai Council of acting "petulantly" over housing targets.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Mr Stokes said that if the council did not want to undertake local planning responsibilities, "I can appoint a planning administrator to do it for them".
"My preference is they do what they're elected to do, because I think their community feels passionately about local planning, so I'd encourage them not to hand over their powers but if they want to, we'll help them," he said.
His comments come after Ku-ring-gai mayor Jennifer Anderson seized on a letter from Mr Stokes, which stated targets weren't a legal requirement, to amend the council's draft housing strategy. Liberal MPs Jonathan O'Dea, who represents Davidson, and member for Ku-ring-gai Alister Henskens had previously criticised the strategy for allowing buildings up to 15 to 20 storeys high in some areas.
Mr Stokes' letter of September 8 said councils were ultimately responsible for deciding the number of dwellings in their targets but encouraged them to work with the commission to meet the needs of Greater Sydney.
Lindfield, part of the Ku-ring-gai council area. Credit: James Brickwood
In a newsletter last week Cr Anderson said that in March the commission set a target of 3000 to 3600 new homes in Ku-ring-gai within the next six to 10 years, equating to a projected population increase of 10,000 residents.
"The council put together a housing strategy based on that target," she said.
Ku-ring-gai mayor Jennifer Anderson.
In her mayoral minute put to a council meeting last week to reject the target, Cr Anderson quoted from submissions written by the pair of Liberal MPs regarding the draft strategy that said the targets weren't binding.
"It is clear from the correspondence that I and my councillor colleagues have been receiving in recent weeks that the overwhelming majority of our community does not want more development beyond that already existing in current zonings," Cr Anderson said in her minute.
She said in her newsletter of that week that the council initially voted to adopt an amended strategy that would result in new housing built to the year 2036 from its existing capacity and within existing planning controls, but a majority of councillors then moved to rescind it. It will be debated again at the next council meeting.
The following day Mr Stokes sent an open letter to all councils saying the matter was not just about independence, "it's about responsibility too".
"If councils don’t want to lead planning for growth at a local level, it will simply mean the government will need to take more direct action. If Ku-ring-gai Council doesn’t want to take on that responsibility, they are welcome to ask the government to do the work for them," Mr Stokes wrote.
In a newsletter on Monday, Cr Anderson - a former staffer to one-time federal Liberal leader Brendan Nelson - said Mr Stokes' letter appeared to threaten government intervention, and represented a "stark contrast" to his earlier response.
Asked by the Herald whether she had responded to it, Cr Anderson replied, "I never respond to anything that even remotely appears to be a threat."
Mr O'Dea said Mr Stokes' letter also talked about collaboration between different levels of government, saying the Minister had been accommodating towards the council, "but now they're throwing it back in his face".
"The council's gone from a position of proposing ridiculously high buildings to now saying 'we’ll do nothing'," he said.
Mr Stokes said the council had gone from one extreme to the other: "It seems to me that they've thrown their toys out of the cot."
"The whole system is designed for everyone to work together, it's not designed for councils to behave petulantly," he said.
In an open letter to Mr Stokes on September 16, developer group Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest accused the Minister of letting Ku-ring-gai Council "off the hook" regarding housing targets, which he said were "relatively modest" compared to other areas.
"Ku-ring-gai Council, with all its massive potential for growth, has been one of the worst performers in the context of COVID-19, with a meagre seven approvals in the June quarter (start of April – end of June) for new multi-unit dwellings out of a total approved of 307 in the Northern District," Mr Forrest wrote.