Up to 60,000 homes could be accommodated and 126,000 commercial and retail jobs could be created in and around new transport hubs across Sydney, the NSW Government says.

The NSW Government has finalised rezonings and delivered masterplans for its seven Transport Oriented Development Accelerated Precincts zones at Bankstown, Bella Vista, Crows Nest, Homebush, Hornsby, Kellyville and Macquarie Park.

Also known as tier one TOD sites, these are high-priority locations that have undergone accelerated rezonings and will accommodate high and mid-rise homes as well as commercial opportunities within around 1.2 km of metro and rail stations.

The developments come as governments around Australia and especially in New South Wales and Victoria are seeking transit-oriented development as part of their strategy to deliver additional housing supply and employment opportunities.

Transit oriented development aims to prioritise and unlock new housing and employment in and around major transport hubs.

In Victoria, the Government recently unveiled 25 ‘train and tram’ zones in which it hopes to promote additional development.

The new homes and jobs in NSW will be supported by $520 million to fund new public spaces and active transport links – something which the government says will deliver more vibrant and walkable precincts.

To promote affordable housing in these precincts, the masterplans will include a strategy of ‘inclusionary zoning’ – a concept which involves a portion of new homes being delivered throughout the area being affordable and made available to low-income households.

Toward this, end, the masterplans have established a minimum affordable housing rate of 3 percent to be held in perpetuity across all sites.

This will scale up to a higher affordable housing rate of 18 per cent to be applied across key sites within the precincts.

The mix of housing and commercial/employment space will vary across different tier-one TODs.

In Macquarie Park (see top image for render), for example, the focus is largely on employment, with plans for more than 3 million square meters of commercial floor space set to provide capacity for up to 100,000 jobs (the precinct will also accommodate 9,600 new homes).

The plan also includes more than 14 hectares of new/upgraded parks, plazas and open spaces.

In Homebush, by contrast, up to 18,000 new homes are envisaged along with 3,000 jobs.

The plan for Homebush also envisages transport connections via two Sydney Trains station and a future Sydney Metro station along with open spaces, community facilities and new active transport links and streets.

(Render of the future Homebush Transport Oriented Development Accelerated Precinct)

To encourage faster development within the new TOD’s the NSW Government has announced new provisions that were exhibited alongside the masterplans.

These will offer a streamlined pathway for planning assessments, including:

• Access to the State Significant Development pathway for planning assessment for proposals which are valued at more than $60 million (or approximately 100 homes). This will provide an assessment within 275 days, with only 90 of those days being in government hands.
• Exclusion of certain low-risk concurrence and referral (C&R) provisions as requirements for development applications. This referrers to requirements that authorities need to consider when reviewing a development application. The requirements will be excluded in these instances as consideration of the relevant items has been dealt with during the rezoning stage.
• Exempting residential developments in TOD Accelerated Precincts from design competitions – competitive processes whereby designers submit proposals for projects and the jury selects the best one. To ensure design quality, developments will still need to meet the Apartment Design Guidelines.

Property industry lobby groups have broadly welcomed the latest announcements.

Stuart Ayres, CEO of UDIA NSW, has applauded the government on the prompt finalisation of the rezonings.

“The quick finalisation of these rezonings is welcome news,” Ayres said.

“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.”

However, Ayres cautioned that the final plans have failed to resolve obstacles to project feasibility in regard to development within the zones.

First, Ayres says questions the continued inclusion of mandatory commercial floor space requirements in light of current office vacancy rates.

He says this is a missed opportunity that will unduly restrict the volume of new housing in these precincts.

(Provision of retail and commercial space within TODs is part of a general strategy to promote commerce and employment in these zones and to ensure that skilled employment opportunities are available close to where people live within the TODs.)

Ayres also criticised the way in which the mandatory inclusionary housing policy has been applied.

Whilst he welcomed changes compared with the draft rezonings to enable these to be applied more flexibly, he said the sliding scale from 3 percent to up to 18 percent on ‘key sites’ is confusing.

For the sites on which the rate of 18 percent is set to be applied, Ayres says that delivering on this in a feasible manner is unlikely to be possible without a significant increase in allowable density.

Urban Taskforce CEO Tom Forrest said that the finalised rezonings had resolved many of the questions and concerns from when the draft rezonings were published.

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