Independent MP for Wollondilly Judy Hannan is standing next to a forthcoming housing estate on the side of a main road,watching trucks and bobcats and the other harbingers of new homes.

This is Wilton;77 kilometres from Central Station,half an hour’s drive south of Campbelltown,where Picton Road meets the Hume Motorway. There are very few jobs here,and there’s even less public transport. But there are another 15,000 houses coming.

“We’re getting these massive developments,” says Hannan. “Until now,the state government has just been approving them,some of them literally overnight. We already lack infrastructure,there’s no question. But once we get these things put here … How can you live here?”

This estate is so new that when theHerald visits in early June,the streets are not even on Google Maps. A few weeks later they have appeared,with names like Hepper Parkway,Davisland Avenue and Bradninch Crescent.

Wilton,and Appin just up the road,will be key planks in the state’s plan to turn around a dismal housing supply rate and build 314,000 new homes by 2029. While Wilton has been under way for some time,Planning Minister Paul Scully approved 13,000 new homes at Appin only a week ago. That approval covers 1378 hectares,93 per cent of which is owned by developer Walker Corp.

The government’s decision to back Appin jars with its scepticism about greenfield development outside established urban areas. Premier Chris Minns has emphasised he wants to stop adding endless sprawl to Sydney’s fringe,in part because it creates expensive infrastructure demands.

People will disagree about whether places like this should ever have been built. But the fact is,they are happening. Now the government will need to provide amenities for upwards of 40,000 homes – potentially 120,000 people – by the time both sites are completed.

Hannan,and other community leaders such as Wollondilly Shire Mayor Matt Gould,had hoped Minns would shelve the previous government’s Appin plans and concentrate on infrastructure development at Wilton. Last week’s decision put an end to that possibility.

“You’ve now got two areas that are not contiguous with the city that are competing for very basic infrastructure,and both of them are going to end up a mess,” says Gould.

“The planning for this has been going on for over a decade now. We’re seeing houses starting to appear. But the infrastructure delivery[is] so badly lacking that[as] these first houses ... are being built,they’re literally having to truck out the effluent on a daily basis,because they couldn’t get something so basic as the sewage management sorted.”

Wilton and Appin are well beyond Sydney’s metropolitan train network,though they both fall into the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ definition of Greater Sydney,and as such,their residents count toward Greater Sydney’s population.

But Gould is empathetic:most people here consider themselves to be a regional area. Nobody thinks they’re part of Sydney.

On the opposite side of Picton Road is another master planned community,Bingara Gorge,which opened about 10 years ago. Centred around an 18-hole golf course,the estate contains 800 homes,with another 150 under construction. By 2025,it is expected to have 1800 homes and more than 6000 residents.

Wilton is deceptively close to Wollongong;just over half an hour by car. According to a glossy A3 brochure:“Locals say that at Bingara Gorge you are 30 minutes from almost everything!” The corollary is also true:you are at least 30 minutes from pretty much anything.

A four-bedroom house on a 450 square metre block of land here goes for about $1.2 million. Apart from homes,there is a primary school,a tiny plaza and a cafe,though plans have been lodged for a village shopping centre and a country club adjoining the golf course.

The plan is to develop all four corners of Wilton around the motorway’s intersection with Picton Road by 2040. A 2018 Department of Planning document laid out an ambitious vision,including a Wilton town centre with shops,medium-density housing,a sports field,potential kindergarten to year 12 school,and integrated health centre.

A June 2023 update noted the need to “reprioritise transport infrastructure and opportunities for improved transport services” in the Wilton growth area,and a review was under way to prioritise connections between the precincts. It also noted Wilton Public School was being upgraded and a business case was being prepared for another primary school,but did not mention a high school.

However,Hannan wants infrastructure now. She points out Wollondilly Shire is physically larger than the Sydney metropolitan area but has no hospital. When she meets theHerald,she has just returned from the shire’s one public high school,Picton High,which was recently upgraded.

“We were told there would be space for 2000 students,” Hannan says. “They have 1200 there at the moment,and they’re busting at the seams.”

Two new school sites are pencilled in at Panorama,an entirely new community being built by government developer Landcom at North Wilton. “A place of big skies,new beginnings and open spaces”,Panorama will eventually contain 5600 homes (and 10 per cent affordable housing),52 hectares of open space,seven sports fields and a 360-hectare environmental conservation area.

At a recent Property Council summit on housing,Landcom chief executive Alexander Wendler said he was “personally a big supporter of the ‘up not out’ edict from the premier”. But he said projects like Wilton were still necessary to offer a diverse mix of housing types.

“There is still some space for well-done greenfield development,” Wendler said. “Obviously,North Wilton will have a different mix to something in the city.”

Adam Leto,chief executive of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue,said last week’s approval of the 13,000 new homes at Appin seemed at odds with the new government’s previous statements and inclination. While greenfield development was needed,the infrastructure needed to be there,“or we run the risk of creating short-term gain,but long-term pain”,he said.

Scully,as planning minister,has vowed the new government will not allow infrastructure to lag housing. He pointed out the Appin rezoning was a first step,and will not come into effect until December.

An Appin “precinct structure plan” will establish areas of medium and low density housing,areas of native vegetation to be protected,any educational facilities,roads and transport and a minimum 108.6 hectares of open space (excluding koala corridors).

Walker Corp,along with Transport for NSW,is also required to develop a transport management and accessibility plan,and the government has committed $2 million to accelerate improvements to Appin Road between Appin and Campbelltown.

Scully said that from October,areas of high housing growth will also have access to infrastructure funding generated from the government’s reforms to infrastructure contributions “that will allow housing growth to be more closely matched with the infrastructure needed to support it”.

There is also more to come. An 80-page infrastructure delivery plan prepared for Walker Corp by GLN Planning anticipates that,by 2056,Appin and North Appin will have 21,865 homes and 65,204 people. The approval documents show 5 per cent will have to be affordable housing,in line with the Campbelltown local environment plan.

The documents go into detail on proposed infrastructure milestones,such as the construction of a new four-lane road to the freeway before the 8001st housing lot is registered. It says six primary schools and three high schools will be needed,with timing in the hands of the government or private sector.

But in Wollondilly Shire,people are sceptical about infrastructure promises. Some remember the “bridge to nowhere” that still crosses the Nepean at Maldon,a relic of a promised train line to Dombarton and Port Kembla that was abandoned in 1988 and never resumed.

Hannan,the local MP,has no doubt infrastructure concerns played a big role in her constituents’ decision to dump the Liberals and elect her – the only NSW teal independent elected in March.

She understands the need for more housing and says the Appin announcement “looks like a great win” for the government. But she wonders what kind of lives the people who move there will lead.

“A lot of what Minns has been saying we agree strongly with,” says Gould. “You can’t keep putting housing on the outskirts of Sydney where there is no infrastructure. It’s the residents that are bearing the costs.”

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