Ambitious Vision for Six Cities a welcome blueprint says UDIA

UDIA welcomes the bold and ambitious plan for the Six Cities Region as revealed in the Discussion Paper released today by Premier Dominic Perrottet.

The NSW Government’s new strategic focus on the Six Cities Region presents an enormous and crucial opportunity to set the Sydney megaregion on a path for exponential growth. If the proper settings are put in place now, we can build better communities with enhanced economic, social and environmental benefits and lift the global competitiveness of NSW.

“Today’s blueprint represents a clear vision for the Six Cities Region and it will be essential to leverage this new focus whereby the value of the Greater Sydney megaregion is greater than the sum of its six parts,” said Steve Mann, CEO, UDIA NSW.

The Sydney megaregion currently delivers around a third of the Australian GDP making it by far the most important economic region in Australia and with over 6.3million people it needs to be planned to grow as a globally competitive powerhouse heading towards a conurbation city in coming decades of over 8 million people, able to rival the Randstad in the Netherlands and San Francisco in the USA,” added Mr Mann.

“The 10-year outlook indicates that 400,000 new dwellings will be needed by 2031 in the six cities region.  We clearly have a long way to go before this is achievable and government must get it right as the region represents 90% of new housing supply for NSW,” said Steve Mann.

However, there is a long way between an ambitious vision and seeing that vision turn into reality. Our UDIA NSW Issues Paper: Priority Focus Areas to Ensure Success for the Six Cities Region aligns closely with the sentiment in the Discussion Paper and we recommend that the NSW Government does two things immediately to get the vision off to the best possible start including:

  1. Moves strategic transport and land use planning under one agency. The Six Cities discussion paper rightly highlights the need for these to be fully integrated. The best way to do this is to put them under one agency.
  2. Realises that the vision is going to need a step change in the State’s ability to attract private sector investment to deliver the places and infrastructure we are going to need. The NSW Government should ask the NSW Productivity Commissioner to undertake a review into how NSW can better leverage private sector investment to deliver the Six Cities vision.

We welcome the Discussion Paper’s recognition that better connections throughout the Six Cities will open up new opportunities for settlement and support increased housing supply. We see the opportunity for new towns and centres to emerge within the Six Cities Region supported by appropriate infrastructure at regional, city and local scale. This should be managed with a settlement strategy that considers greater potential for population growth and broader acceptance post-COVID working from home, while still maximising the benefits of the established key centres in each of the Cities.

“We need to use this major strategy review now to implement better processes for planning, governance, and engagement to unlock the private sector investment required to support the NSW Government’s vision for the Six Cities Region as Australia’s economic powerhouse,” said Mr Mann.

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Media Enquiries:
Deanna Lane 0416 295 898 or dlane@udiansw.com..au