I recently called on the NSW Government to come up with a “Plan B” for new housing in Western Sydney after they ruled out three massive projects in the Hawkesbury Nepean basin that would have delivered 10,000 new homes in Marsden Park North, West Schofields and Riverstone town centre.

Urban Taskforce is advised that the actual number is over 25,000 when you include the down-zoning of thousands of smaller landowner sites.

NSW is required to deliver 376,000 new dwellings in the five years from July 2024 to June 2029. Housing development needs to be firing on all cylinders – meaning the need for both infill and greenfield housing.

That essentially means a doubling of the housing supply in NSW and the first step towards improving capacity and performance in the planning system.  This message seems to have been well and truly embraced by the Premier, Chris Minns and the Treasurer, Daniel Mookhey. Planning Minister Scully has had to fight against a cultural malaise in his department, but he too is talking the talk on housing supply.

The early efforts to give effect to boosts in affordable housing supply fell victim to conservative DPE thinking – but the final reforms are expected before Christmas and we all hope the public service has heard the clear messages from the new government.

We need a “Plan B”. In fact – we need 10 new plans B, C, D, and E through to K !

With the centralisation of decision making, target setting and accountability once again under the Department, the signs are better, but we wait with bated breath. So what could our “Plans B-K” be? I have penned 10 positive suggestions to drive housing supply across NSW.

Plan B – Affordable Housing Bonus: Amend the Housing SEPP to apply the 30% bonus in height and density in return for 15% affordable housing, operated by a CHP or authorised provider, for 15 years. Simplify the system by making these provisions replace all existing affordable housing provisions in any Local Environment Plan (LEP).

Change the definition of affordable housing to make it consistent with the definition used by the Commonwealth HAFF (20%-30% discount to market rent – depending on the location).  For those projects that meet the State Significant Development threshold, suspend all LEP statutory controls and allow the Secretary of DPE to issue new controls via Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs).

Plan C – Use the skills of the private sector to drive housing supply: Call for expressions of interest from the private sector for “shovel-ready” sites located in and around town centres for rapid assessment and approval.

Publish clear criteria and make all applications public (only commercial in confidence material should be redacted).

For each site, issue new development controls relevant to the application and detail of the site.  Have DPE undertake an assessment and a specialist panel deliver the determinations, appointed by the Premier and Minister of Planning with experience in larger DA assessments.

A very similar program was actually initiated by the former Government with a program called the State Accelerated Planning Process (SAPP). It called for the submission of projects for State Significant Development assessment if they could deliver over 1,000 new homes.

There were over 100 applications lodged.  The problem was, the former Minister was spooked by Teals challenging him for his local seat.  He insisted in shrouding all consideration of these applications with probity provisions and secrecy. This caused many councils to oppose or actively frustrate consideration of these applications.  In the end, the program effectively died with only 5 given the go-ahead and none in metropolitan Sydney.

At a time of crisis, we need the State Government to be leading the charge on assessments and approvals. It is time for another go.

• Short timeframe for Expressions of Interest
• Minimum 250 new dwellings per application
• Short timeframe for an initial assessment and response.
• Full application within 3 months (even if it is part way through another planning process)
• Full assessment and determination within 3 months.
• Works to commence within 6 months (including delivering on a Construction Certificate conditions).

Such a program could deliver in both greenfield and infill development locations and enable councils to focus on medium density proposals.

Plan D – Transit Oriented Developments – Establish a set of high-level objectives for increased housing supply and mixed-use development within 800m and/or 1,200m of all heavy rail, light rail, metro rail and bus corridors.  Beyond those broad principles, over-ride LEP planning controls and allow for a merit-based assessment for each application. Call for expressions of interest from the private sector to avoid waiting 18 months for DPE to prepare detailed precinct plans for each area.

Plan E – Stop trying to plan how we live: Abolish the planning paternalism that has created the crisis: show faith in consumers and relax the planners’ and architects’ obsession with imposing their own values on how others (the rest of us) should live.  Allow for smaller apartments.  Allow for more south facing terraces that don’t meet solar access obligations.  Allow for mixed use development.

Be more flexible about what is allowed in each zone. As long as these “issues” are clearly noted on title and on all rental or sales contracts, let consumers decide how, where and in what they want to live. This would require a substantial change in culture, guidelines and rules around planning – but if we are going to get close to these targets, this is what is required.

Zoning restrictions on land uses are the essence of planning bureaucracy. We need to relax the zoning regulations and the Apartment Design Guidelines to allow the conversion of underutilised office buildings which are proliferating post COVID in our strategic centres.  We need to act fast to allow for the conversion of these empty office buildings into residential apartments for housing, including affordable housing.

Plan F – Strategic Planning:  Put a broom through the “Metropolis of Three Cities” Region Plan. The new Region Plan must focus on housing and employment. The rest of the document was virtue signalling via a glossy brochure and can be removed.

Planning must urgently set ambitious new housing targets for every District and Local Government Area. Make clear that the Premier’s priority is housing supply and housing affordability and everything else is nice to have – but is not the primary objective. To that end:

• Remove reference to Metropolitan Rural Areas completely – the myth that the MRA protects the character of beloved city fringe towns is an overblown excuse to protect the privilege of the few that currently reside in those towns. Most are no longer used for agriculture.  Even seniors’ living has been banned in these areas.
• Abolish the “Protect/Retain/Review and Manage industrial and urban services land” policy and replace it with a policy which protects National and State significant industrial and employment land, but allow the rest to be re-zoned for mixed use or alternative uses, subject to merit based assessment and strict criteria.
• Allow for residential high rise and mixed-use development in all Strategic Centres as was the case in the 2014 Region Plan. This will enliven town centres, improve the ground level retail, locate homes closer to transport options and reduce car dependency.

Plan G – TfNSW – the consent bottleneck on housing supply:  Remove the effective veto from the roads division of TfNSW and push ahead with new development, even if it has a negative impact on the performance of the road network.  A roof over your head is more important than any traffic engineer’s obsession with SIDRA modelling!

COVID showed us that people can adapt so planners and traffic engineers should get out of the way.  They are pushing new home prices up, rents up, forcing people to live with their parents, forcing our best and brightest to move interstate or overseas. Enough!

Plan H – Planning red tape: Undertake a root and branch review of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act and Regulation, along with all the State Environmental Planning Policies, Ministerial Directions and DPE Guidelines, the zoning framework and all aspects of planning rules and regulations.  We are in the middle of a housing supply crisis and the system is broken.  It is time for a broom to be put through the rules to ensure that housing supply meets demand.

Every time a planning rule or regulation results in a no to increased housing supply, that is a “no” for a young family; a “no” for a millennial that wants a small place to live that’s close to work and close to a nightlife that can be enjoyed; a “no” for a new migrant; a “no” new rental accommodation; a “no” for an elderly couple looking to downsize from the family home.

The planning system in NSW has become the bastion of the “NO” and that has to change.

Plan I – Make Missing Middle development work: Remove the requirement in the Exempt and Complying SEPP for all “missing middle” residential developments to have access for each dwelling from the ground floor.  This provision effectively excludes residential apartment development – even at a low height and scale.

Residential Apartment Buildings (Strata Multi Unit Dwelling buildings) must be permissible in any area that allows for medium density development.  The size and scale of the development (height, FSR, setbacks etc) should remain subject to the relevant controls.

Plan J – Embrace Manufactured Homes: Remove the outdated prohibition on manufactured home estates in the Sydney basin.   Manufactured homes estates offer tremendous potential in addressing housing supply, quickly delivering high quality, low-cost, affordable housing, particularly in areas such as senior’s housing. They have the support of the Building Commissioner because quality can be assured at the point of manufacture.

The NSW Government must also streamline planning assessment and approval pathways for land lease developments. It works in Queensland and across regional NSW – so why is it banned here in Greater Sydney?

Plan K – Infrastructure Co-ordination: The timely delivery of infrastructure is the lifeblood of housing supply and employment growth. The Government must ensure that all Government agencies commit to the delivery of infrastructure to support the delivery of the 376,000 new homes required by the National Housing Accord.

Importantly, to ease transport and roads congestion, the government needs to focus on employment growth in Western Sydney.  This means re-aligning infrastructure expenditure to deliver infrastructure that will support jobs that are ready to go now.  Elizabeth Drive and Mamre Road are ready to deliver thousands of new jobs, but all we have so far is endless media releases and ribbon cutting on empty fields involving the erstwhile Premier.

The success of the Aerotropolis depends on the growth of employment surrounding the airport.  The focus on Bradfield is misplaced. Infrastructure spending needs to support the areas where the private sector has consolidated land parcels and is ready to deliver employment opportunities. Support the cities of Liverpool, Penrith, Campbelltown and Blacktown, and abandon the vanity project of Bradfield.

This re-alignment should be overseen by the Premier’s Department, with the support of DPE, Sydney Water, TfNSW, Health Infrastructure and Schools Infrastructure.

Conclusion

To reach the National Housing Accord targets, we need a multi-faceted approach to planning reform.  There is no single “silver bullet” to solve the current crisis.

With some vision, courage, strategic and focussed reform, we can turn the planning system around to get on with job of enabling the private sector to deliver housing supply.