Investment in enabling infrastructure has been at the centre of UDIA NSW advocacy for many years and today’s announcement with more details of a $300m fund announced in the recent NSW Budget, will help to create development ready land that will deliver homes and improve affordability for the people of NSW.
“We are pleased to see that this money which was announced in the NSW budget, is now being progressed to deliver enabling infrastructure at a local level and that twenty-three regional councils and 18 metropolitan councils, in Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong are eligible to apply for the funding, many of whom are UDIA members,” said Steve Mann, CEO UDIA NSW.
However, delivering homes requires a number of pieces of the puzzle to be put in place, not just Council infrastructure, but also biodiversity issues which still require much work, the timely delivery of rezoning, master planning for precinct creation and State delivered infrastructure such as major roads, sewer and water.
Today’s announcement is focused on infrastructure for local government and we also need to see investment from state government agencies continuing to be invested in specific enabling infrastructure as outlined in our four UDIA NSW Building Blocks Reports (Greater Western Sydney, Hunter, Central Coast and Illawarra Shoalhaven). We acknowledge that three projects in Greater Western Sydney identified in our report, eg Spring Farm Parkway, The Water Lane and Box Hill Substation have progressed which could support up to 25000 homes, there are still approximately 40,000 homes still unaccounted for from the estimated 60,000 homes we identified in the remaining six projects.
In our pre-budget submissions, UDIA recommended the establishment of a self-replenishing fund to support Councils in bringing forward enabling infrastructure with future infrastructure contributions used to replenish the fund. This would support a continuous investment in local enabling infrastructure, rather than the current sporadic grants program and this would cost NSW taxpayers less.
UDIA has developed the Empowered Urban Development Program (UDP aussie-online-casinos.com) as a key governance platform to prioritise and coordinate local and state funding and the provision of enabling infrastructure, designed to improve productivity in the delivery of new homes to a needy market across the Sydney Megaregion and help to achieve affordability.
“UDIA calls on the government to focus on creating a healthy development ready pipeline, with all of the pieces of the puzzle for the delivery of housing to be put into place, including necessary state and local infrastructure, precincts plans, rezoning and biodiversity issues resolved,” Mr Mann said.
Media Enquiries:
Deanna Lane 0416 295 898 or dlane@udiansw.com.au.