UDIA NSW has welcomed this morning’s announcement by the NSW Premier and Minister for Planning & Public spaces to rezone seven precincts with capacity for up to 58,000 new homes, but remains concerned the final proposals fail to fully capitalise on the full housing potential of these sites.
The rezonings announced today are for 4,000 fewer homes than exhibited. While areas for new housing have been added in some sites, UDIA is concerned we have lost an opportunity to deliver truly vibrant, well-connected precincts that mirror global cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Toronto.
“The quick finalisation of these rezonings is welcome news. It shows with strong political leadership you can plan and rezone large scale housing sites quickly. We congratulate the Government and encourage them to continue to explore more opportunities to rapidly masterplan and rezone more housing sites across NSW,” said Stuart Ayres, CEO, UDIA NSW.
“Unfortunately, these final TOD plans haven’t addressed key delivery obstacles including the need to dramatically increase the total number of homes to improve project feasibility.”
“The continued inclusion of mandatory non-residential floor space requirements is a missed opportunity to unlock new homes, given that in so many of these areas there is a glut of vacant commercial floorspace and vacancy rates over 20%.”
While Government has listened to industry’s calls to allow mandatory affordable housing contributions to be delivered flexibly via a monetary contribution or gifting of homes to a Community Housing provider, the sliding scale from 3% to up to 18% in “key sites” is confusing and will impact feasibility.
“While industry supports the delivery of affordable housing, these contributions will increase the cost for future homebuyers. Contributions of 18% will be impossible to deliver unless densities are dramatically increased,” said Stuart Ayres.
Scrapping the need for costly design competitions and putting in place alternative design requirements, is something UDIA has consistently advocated for and coupled with a fast-tracked state led approval pathway, can help get homes under construction sooner.
“UDIA has been an advocate of more TODs to unlock higher density homes close to where people work. While TODs are great long-term policy, they take a long time to deliver and these sites are unlikely to contribute to meeting the 2029 Housing Accord targets.
“Government should be realistic about development feasibility being constrained in the near term, closely monitor development activity in these areas and be prepared to adjust the settings and controls if it is clear the market is not responding,” said Stuart Ayres.
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Media Enquiries: Deanna Lane, Director of Media & Communications
UDIA NSW and National dlane@udiansw.com.au 0416 295 898