source : the age
About 3600 units would be built around a new train station in Sydney’s east under an alternative scheme by the local council to fend off the NSW government’s plans to deliver up to 10,000 homes.
The Liberal-dominated Woollahra Council is fighting the Minns Labor government’s plan to revive a dormant train station and add thousands of sorely needed new homes at Woollahra and Edgecliff.
A council report, published on Wednesday, said the proposal represented a “dramatic shift in density”, and the government had not provided enough evidence to justify opening the station, nor the impacts the development would have on housing diversity, heritage assets and tree canopy.
“While council supports increased housing supply in well-located areas, the precinct in question faces significant constraints to growth, including the limited number of developable sites, the challenging topography, traffic and transport limitations, [and] a deficiency of open space.”
Backlash against the state-led rezoning turned the proposal into a flashpoint in the city’s housing supply and affordability debate, as the NSW government lags on its five-year target to build 377,000 new homes by mid-2029. Woollahra local government area’s population declined by 1717 people since 2019, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Under the government’s rezoning proposal, as many as 10,000 dwellings for 21,000 residents would be built within 400 metres of Edgecliff Station and 800 metres of the future Woollahra Station.
Up to 10 per cent of new homes would be “affordable housing” dwellings for low-income earners.
In September, councillors resolved for staff to keep working with the government on the rezoning plan, while allocating $700,000 for studies on infrastructure, open space, transport and feasibility.
Those studies, they said, identified capacity for between 2240 and 3650 additional dwellings if Woollahra train station opened. Councillors will debate the matter at a meeting on August 24.
“While the impact of this level of growth would be significant in an already highly populated precinct … [council found] this level of growth to be feasible and capable of being supported through realistic infrastructure investment, whilst appropriately balancing local constraints,” the report said.
The council said there were 18 buildings between nine-storeys and 20 storeys or higher in the area due to be rezoned, whereas 80 towers of 26 storeys would be needed to deliver 10,000 apartments.
State and federal Liberals previously suggested they were open to the proposal, while Sydney YIMBY described the initial plan as “a great outcome: it plans homes and infrastructure together, and does it in a suburb which has had negative growth in housing stock at every census going back to 1996.”
Planning Minister Paul Scully had not seen the council’s alternative proposal on Wednesday, but he said the planning department had been working with the council staff on the state-led rezoning.
“To the best of my knowledge, it’s been constructive right the way through. Let’s have one process rather than two,” Scully said.
The government’s masterplan is expected to go on public exhibition in the next few months. The station is due to be completed in 2029.
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