Minns says a fight with councils is ‘the last thing we want’ - but he has one over housing

At a Ryde council meeting this week, only one number mattered: 43,090. That’s the number of new homes council staff say could be built in the municipality under the state government’s reforms to boost housing density.

“Just soak this one stat in,” said councillor Sophie Lara-Watson. “That would include potentially up to 107,000 more people – an increase in Ryde’s current population of 83 per cent.” Her Liberal colleague Trenton Brown was more blunt: “We’re almost doubling the people in our LGA.”

The figures are alarming. But are they realistic? They were calculated this way: Ryde has 10,992 individual lots that are zoned for low-density residential and large enough to be converted into manor homes (usually four dwellings) under the government’s policy. If all were redeveloped in that way, 43,000 new dwellings, with an average 2.5 residents each, would be created.

Recognising this is unlikely, the council also models a “conservative” take-up rate of 50 per cent, or 21,500 new homes. That is still many more than Ryde – which has undergone rapid transformation and met its housing completion targets – has delivered in the past 20 years.

In contrast, the government says its changes to low- and mid-rise housing might yield 110,000 additional dwellings across the state by 2030. Planning Minister Paul Scully said: “The council’s projections of take up rates are beyond ridiculous. No reasonable person thinks that any planning reforms will see every single person in a local government area sell up or demolish their homes.”

By July 1, the government will furnish each NSW council with a new set of targets stipulating how many dwellings they are expected to deliver, and over what timeframe. Meanwhile, however, speculation abounds about what these reforms will mean in practice.

In Ku-ring-gai, community groups are mobilising to fight the government’s changes to planning controls.Credit: Michael Koziol

The politics

Significant changes to the planning system will always be politically fraught, especially in a council election year. Responses run the gamut from eager acceptance to outright hostility. Many councils sympathise with the government’s aim to build more homes, but object to a “one size fits all” approach. Some, such as Ryde, are bandying about exaggerated claims as to the impacts.

Premier Chris Minns seems determined to hold his nerve. Principally, his team is convinced of the policy’s merit and, politically, they believe demographics are on their side, as millennials come to dominate the city’s voting base and demand action on housing affordability.

It’s going to be a painful journey and Minns knows it. On Thursday, he was flanked by five Sydney mayors for a press conference in the inner suburban Forest Lodge designed to demonstrate “density done well” and demonstrate cross-party support for the reforms.

“This doesn’t have to be adversarial,” Minns said. “There were some reports last week that the government was at odds and determined to pick a fight with the mayors and local governments of Sydney. That’s the last thing we want to do.”

NSW Premier Chris Minns flanked by Sydney mayors on Thursday afternoon.Credit: Rhett Wyman

That’s debatable. Since coming to office in March, the government has laid the groundwork for these changes, speaking endlessly about the need to boost supply, and the exodus of key workers and young people from Sydney as prices rise. At times it has also lashed out at councils, with Minns complaining about anti-development mayors who only say “no, or hell no”.

“We’re not afraid of that fight, we’re prepared to take it on,” he said in June. This week, Housing Minister Rose Jackson accused some mayors of “ridiculous, low-rent nonsense” and Nimbyism.

The plan

The reforms were finalised shortly before Christmas. Eight major transport hubs were selected to become “priority high-growth areas” and the government will rezone and draw up master plans for these. Another 31 suburbs will have new planning controls applied within 400 metres of the train station to permit apartments up to six storeys.

Controls will also change around numerous other train stations, light rail stops and town centres. Within 800 metres of these, any land zoned as medium-density must allow apartments, and land zoned as low-density must allow multi-dwelling housing such as terraces, townhouses or two-storey apartment blocks.

On medium-density land, councils won’t be able to refuse apartment blocks of up to six storeys (within 400 metres of a station) or four storeys (between 400m-800m of a station) on the basis of height alone. All low-density residential land in NSW will have to permit subdivisions and dual occupancies.

While media coverage focused on the 39 train stations selected for more intense change, it is the less flashy but further-reaching changes to low and mid-rise housing which have arguably caused the most angst and generated the most pushback.

The changes are complex, even for experts. Planning Department secretary Kiersten Fishburn and her deputy Monica Gibson have been on a whistle-stop tour, running workshops with councils to explain the details. Councils have held public forums. Mayors are on talkback radio. Around the state, residents are trying to get their heads around planning lingo: SEPPs, setbacks, R2 and R3 zones, minimum lot sizes and non-refusal standards.

The councils

The mayors who joined Minns on Thursday – from Parramatta, Blacktown, Penrith, Campbelltown and the premier’s home turf, Georges River – collectively cover more than 1.2 million Sydneysiders. Notably, all were men, and four of the five are from the west – the engine room of the city’s housing growth.

Missing from the love-in was anyone from the north shore, eastern suburbs or inner-city – the exact parts of Sydney the state government would like to do more. Also absent –and not invited – was Darcy Byrne, the long-serving Labor mayor of Inner West council, which itself is a case study in how the politics of the issue are shifting.

A popular but expensive place to live, the inner west is ground zero of the housing debate. More than 40 per cent of the municipality has some form of heritage protection. There were 1678 new homes built there in 2017-18, at the end of the last boom. In the year to June, that figure was just 231, and the forecast is for 500 to 800 homes a year for the next few years.

Inner West Council, among several others, met this week to debate its response. Staff had prepared a draft submission detailing “significant concerns” that the government plans would bypass its strategic planning work, apply cookie-cutter controls and degrade the character of the municipality.

“Consequently, council strongly opposes the application of these reforms in the inner west,” the draft report said, while arguing the council was “committed to unlocking housing opportunities” using its own framework.

However, the Labor majority led by Byrne voted the report down, instead passing a motion that underlined “the seriousness of the housing supply crisis”, endorsed higher density near transport hubs, and sought meetings with Planning Minister Paul Scully to discuss “positive collaboration”.

“I want to see us play a constructive role,” Byrne said. “I don’t agree with everything that the government has put forward. But I also don’t think that we should deal ourselves out of the discussion by simply saying ‘no’. I think we owe our community something more sophisticated and more impactful than just saying ‘no’.”

“I think we owe our community something more sophisticated and impactful”: Inner West Labor mayor Darcy Byrne.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

The motion also called on Minns to “do more” directly, such as create a state-owned company to build homes for sale and the private rental market (Landcom has dabbled in this), expedite an audit of government land that could be used for housing, and invest a large sum in public housing akin to Victoria’s $5.3 billion “Big Build” of 2020.

Serious funding for social housing remains a challenge the Minns government has not tackled.

Greens councillor Dylan Griffiths initially joined his colleagues to back the staff report, but later broke ranks to endorse the Labor position. He also split with the Greens on a matter regarding housing developments along the Parramatta Road corridor. “I am generally really supportive of transport-orientated development,” Griffiths said. He also spoke in favour of immigration.

Sydney council meetings this week looked and sounded similar to the inner west’s, even if their outcomes differed. Most public speakers came from community groups opposed to the plans, though there was frequently at least one person connected to the Sydney Yimby movement who made the case for increased density.

The government’s bid to increase supply - including low and mid-rise housing in the middle suburbs - has generated considerable concerns among local councils.Credit: Oscar Colman

Throughout hours of deliberations, key themes emerged. There was significant resentment about the erosion of “place-based planning” and the state’s applying “one size fits all” controls to precincts that should be planned separately due to unique characteristics.

There were serious concerns about the impact on heritage. Government documents say the new policies will apply in heritage conservation areas, but councils can still enforce heritage controls when assessing development applications.

Many speakers mentioned immigration or said infrastructure was overloaded. Long-term Mortdale resident James Hamilton told Georges River Council: “There’s insufficient open space now. Parks are over-utilised now. Roads are choked now. Hospitals are packed now.”

And there was widespread scepticism about whether increased development would make housing more affordable, as most economists, the Reserve Bank and the NSW Productivity Commission say it will. “I personally believe society is dreaming if it thinks it can build itself out of the current housing shortage,” Hamilton said.

On the other side, pro-housing advocates focused on affordability and the need to increase supply. They lamented that younger people were being forced out of areas they loved – perhaps the entire city – because prices, including rents, were now so high. They argued the amenity and liveability of suburbs would only be enhanced with more density.

“How can I recommend this density? I live in it,” said Daniel Nolan, who has a townhouse with his family in the North Sydney area. “I’m yet to see it manifest as a kind of cheek-by-jowl hellhole that opponents are characterising it as.”

Nolan told the council it was time to share the area with more people. “It’s up to us to make sure that the north shore isn’t seen as a group of Nimby rich folk who are pulling up the ladder and refusing to do their part to help in the housing crisis,” he said.

Mosman Council – which has no train station or light rail, but will be affected by the low and mid-rise changes as it has a major shopping centre – was also outraged about the proposals.

“I find this a betrayal, really. We’re having density shoved upon us,” Liberal councillor Roy Bendall said. “This is opening the floodgates to doubling density all across Sydney. That’s not the Australia I grew up in, it’s not the Australia I want to leave for my kids.”

Bendall called on the council to “fight this with all our hearts”, including a social media campaign. “Get TikTok influencers out there putting rubbish on the government,” he suggested.

Even the mayors who stood beside Minns this week have reservations. Sam Elmir, the ex-Liberal mayor of Georges River, was full of praise for the premier for putting housing at the centre of the government’s agenda in a way few had before. “This is a crisis,” he said.

But at a meeting on Monday night, Elmir’s council unanimously supported a motion asking the government to defer the low- and mid-rise housing reforms so that Georges River could review its own controls, with a view to creating new medium and high-density zones in 12 specific precincts.

The motion also expressed similar concerns to other councils about undermining local planning, overriding heritage and squeezing infrastructure.

The wriggle room

For all its defiant rhetoric, the government has left itself some wriggle room. For one, it says it will repeal its state-imposed planning controls in the 400m radius from 31 train stations if the pertinent council implements its own plan to yield a similar or greater number of new homes.

“If we can come to an accommodation with the mayors, the local councillors in Sydney, where we can get the number of houses that we need in the timeframe that is required, we will leave it up to them how they design their cities,” Minns said on Thursday.

“There is – perhaps for the first time in a very, very long time – an opportunity for the civic leaders, the political leaders of NSW, to come together and finally make some progress when it comes to housing in Australia’s largest city.”