Department secretary Kiersten Fishburn said the measures will be given time to “settle”,but the government would review them if necessary to ensure housing projects were feasible.
Turrella,which is one of the transport-oriented development locations. While controls may change,the locations will not,the planning secretary said.Dion Georgopoulos
“If the controls aren’t right,we will amend the controls,” she told the Urban Development Institute of Australia following the release of the Minns government’s five-year housing targets this week.
“What is unlikely to change is the locations because we need to give the development community certainty about where we see the 20-year pipeline. But if controls need adjusting,the department will certainly look at it. It’s a little bit of a ‘watch this space’.”
In May,the transport-oriented development program started in 18 suburbs with train stations around Sydney,Newcastle,Wollongong and the Central Coast,allowing development up to six-storeys within 400 metres of the station. Another 19 are slated to begin by June next year.
It is part of what Premier Chris Minns called “the biggest single rezoning in modern Australian history” on Wednesday as he The targets rely heavily on homes projected under the TOD program and other reforms.
Developers have concerns about the feasibility of projects at the six-storey limit,especially in parts of Sydney where land is most expensive,such as the north shore and inner west. But planners argue the government’s zoning changes are significant and developers will always ask for more height.
Planning Minister Paul Scully said it had always been the government’s intention that the TOD settings stay in place until councils completed strategic planning that led to an equal or greater uplift in housing.
Meanwhile,councils are concerned they will be judged on the number of housing completions in their municipalities rather than the number of developments they approve,arguing they have no control over what happens post-approval.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore,who this week,drew attention to the metric.
“This means meeting our target is dependent on the property sector,which is highly sensitive to economic conditions such as the availability of construction workers,materials and finance,” she said.
Local Government NSW,which represents the state’s councils,also objected to being measured by completions,rather than approvals,to access the for parks,streets and sporting facilities.
“Councils have an important role in addressing the housing crisis,but they do not build houses,” president Darriea Turley said. “It makes no sense for councils to be marked against whether new homes are completed when this is beyond the control of local government.”
However,Scully said housing targets had always been measured on the basis of completions. “This measure is also consistent with the National Housing Accord targets,” he said.
Peter Phibbs,a professor of planning in Sydney University’s Henry Halloran Trust,said it was “absurd” to punish councils for not presiding over completions if they had made the approvals,especially in higher-density areas where projects took longer.
“If you’re in North Sydney[for example],if you’ve got a tall building,it’s maybe three to four years between the approval and the completion,” Phibbs said.
“The reason a lot of them aren’t completed is because interest rates have gone up,construction costs have risen. That’s not councils’ fault. You can’t make councils responsible for decisions by the Reserve Bank.”
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