More train station housing on the table as Labor says it’s ‘not done’ with planning changes

Planning Minister Paul Scully has declared the state government is “not done” with reforms to ramp up home building as it prepares to slash onerous conditions of consent that imperil construction and considers adding more transport-oriented development (TOD) sites.

Scully said expanding the list of 45 TOD locations was also “an option” but sought to blame the Liberal opposition and a troublesome Sydney council for what is expected to be a slow start to the scheme if and when initial figures are revealed.

NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully addressing the summit on Tuesday.Credit: Michael Quelch

Scully said the Liberals’ failed bid to overturn the program in parliament, and Ku-ring-gai Council’s ongoing challenge in the courts, had created a “chilling effect” that discouraged people from buying land.

“That has obviously created uncertainty for people,” he told a property conference hosted by The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday. He said while the government believed it was in a strong position to defeat Ku-ring-gai’s legal case, “obviously, people who are thinking of investing their money are conscious of that”.

Planning controls for the first TOD sites changed in April and are designed to increase housing capacity over the next 15 years. The opposition has requested the number of development applications lodged so far through budget estimates.

The government is also confronting a backlash from developer groups over its seven “accelerated precincts”, where the Department of Planning took control of rezoning to deliver capacity for an additional 62,000 new homes over the next 15 years.

Developer lobby Urban Taskforce said the revised plans for suburbs such as Crows Nest, Homebush and Bankstown, released for public feedback last month, were “little more than the acceleration of strategic plans that were already well advanced”.

The “disappointing” drafts applied to much smaller areas around each train station than the 1.2-kilometre radius first indicated by the government, the group said; for example, the rezoned area around Hornsby Station was just 8 per cent of that circle.

“[The department] have taken eight months to publish exactly what the council proposed,” it said. “The TOD program is at risk of doing more harm than good by delaying projects that would by now have been well progressed.”

Asked about the criticism on Tuesday, Scully responded: “Yes, it’s an acceleration, but is that such a bad thing? Isn’t that what we’re all trying to achieve?”

The government will next embark on reforms to simplify post-approval conditions of consent for residential developments, over which Scully said there had been “virtually no oversight” to date.

This meant purging construction management plans of conditions that were “not achievable” and “absurd” requirements by state government agencies, which sometimes contradicted each other.

Scully gave the example of a 1000-lot subdivision where one state agency required the land to be cleared to reduce bushfire hazards, while another required it to stay uncleared to protect a creek line. “Such conflicting requirements beggar belief,” he said.

The government continues to examine potential financial measures to support the development industry, including using its balance sheet to underwrite off-the-plan pre-purchases. This can be a major hurdle to securing bank finance to build.

Scully revealed the government was eyeing such a model, used by the Netherlands for the past 30 years.

“In such time, they’ve produced thousands of new homes and never called in the Dutch government to act on that guarantee,” he told the summit.

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