Rezonings welcome but just the tip of the iceberg needed to meet predicted demand

Today’s announcement by Minister Stokes is welcome however represents just the tip of the iceberg required to meet the demand predicted in the recent NSW Intergenerational Report.

The release today of the UDIA NSW Greenfield Land Supply Pipeline Survey, identifies the anticipated schedule for future housing supply delivery and quantifies the barriers, which need to be resolved to bringing them to market.

“While we welcome the Minister’s announcement today to fast track developments in Sydney’s South West as a good first step, the land supply pipeline needs much greater depth to respond to demand where it occurs and coordination of enabling infrastructure to improve certainty for investment, with the goal of better housing affordability.” said Steve Mann, CEO UDIA NSW.

UDIA NSW’s report is an important part of our advocacy priorities which includes this significant piece of research. The results contain responses from greenfield land developers in the Greater Sydney Megaregion (Greater Sydney, Illawarra-Shoalhaven, Central Coast, and the Hunter) and builds on our Building Blocks Report 2021 released in May.

Highlights from the report:

  • NSW Government’s Intergenerational Report identified that NSW needs to build approximately 42,000 new homes per annum, with over 90% needing to come from the Sydney Megaregion markets.  this translates into around 14,000 greenfield homes per annum, to meet the minimum demand identified.
  • To give an idea of the scale of this challenge, even at the peak of housing construction in 2016, NSW only delivered around 13,180 new greenfield homes and was generated by significant enabling infrastructure investment and coordinated land release.
  • Four out of five lots, a total of 64,000 lots, that developers are hoping to deliver between FY22 and FY29 require enabling infrastructure. Historically, much of this infrastructure has not been delivered in a timely way. If this experience is repeated, then the shortfall in housing supply will be even larger.
  • The majority of lots expected to be delivered in the next 8 years are constrained, with 76% of expected lots needing sewer infrastructure and 70% needing water services.
  • Even if all expected lots developers are expecting to be delivered up until FY29, including those currently requiring re-zoning or facing infrastructure constraints, supply will still fall short of demand by 3,200 lots per annum and 4,400 lots in FY22.
  • Without action, there will be an undersupply of 25,600 greenfield housing lots in the Greater Sydney Megaregion relative to demand by FY30.

“In summary, we have a housing supply crisis, that needs an immediate step change in planning and infrastructure delivery.  Record demand for new homes post COVID has exhausted the greenfield supply and our research shows that a ‘business as usual’ approach is not going to deliver what is required to refill the pipeline. What is needed is a step change in planning decisions and enabling infrastructure to unlock supply.

UDIA stands ready with the evidence to advocate across government to see housing supply and affordability back as a key priority for the NSW government, with decisions made to unlock the supply pipeline.” Added Mr Mann added.
The full Greenfield Land Supply Pipeline report can be found here.

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