Seven Sydney suburbs close to key transport hubs will be rezoned to deliver additional housing to the areas.
As part of the NSW Government’s Transport Orientated Development program, the high-priority locations – in Bankstown, Bella Vista, Crows Nest, Hornsby, Kellyville and Macquarie Park – will also accommodate schools, health services and public spaces. As well, councils will have options to nominate special entertainment centres.
The government has also committed $520 million to fund community infrastructure such as recreation facilities, plazas, and road upgrades.
“These precincts will deliver a mixture of housing, new open spaces and playing fields – they’ll be great communities for families to build a life,” said NSW premier Chris Minns.
Released by the NSW Government on Monday, the masterplans have the capacity to deliver more than 58,000 new homes – including 18,000 in Homebush, 14,000 in Bankstown and 9,600 in Macquarie Park.
Included in the masterplans is an affordable housing rate of 3% and higher affordable housing rates of up to 18% across all seven sites.
Development commitments include:
- land near the Bakehouse Quarter in Homebush to be rezoned as public recreation
- new and upgraded parks in Hornsby and a provision for a new future bus interchange to the west of the train station
- new and improved public open spaces and new active transport links in Bella Vista and Kellyville
- new planning provisions for Bankstown to encourage more community facilities and public open space
- new and improved parks, plazas and open spaces for Macquarie Park
- new road and public open space upgrades and increased tree canopy for Crows Nest.
The finalisation of the rezonings – which come into effective on Wednesday – mean development applications can be submitted and assessed “so that housing construction can start as quickly as possible”, said minister for planning and public spaces Paul Scully.
“Elements of the planning pathway have been streamlined for the assessment of proposals in these locations, which will allow for greater speed without compromising the quality assessment or the final result,” Scully added.
Proposals which are more than $60 million (or approximately 100 homes) will have access to the State Significant Development pathway, which will provide an assessment within 275 days. Also, residential developments will be exempt from design competitions.
The rezoning masterplans were finalised following a six-week community exhibition period which concluded in August. “We made an election commitment to rebalance Sydney’s housing growth around existing transport infrastructure and today we’re delivering the blueprint for those homes,” said Scully.
Minns said the rezoning of the suburbs means NSW is another step closer to building more homes for the next generation of Sydneysiders. “This is all part of the government’s plan to build a better NSW with more homes, so young people, families and workers have somewhere to live.”
Meanwhile, Blacktown City mayor Brad Bunting has expressed support for the government’s decision to remove Glenwood and Stanhope Gardens from the Bella Vista and Kellyville rezoning plan and dramatically scale down the number of new homes from 20,700 to 4,600.
Calling the backtrack “a win for commonsense”, Bunting said: “I heard from many residents who were concerned about the lack of infrastructure planned to accompany the proposed development.”
He added: “I’m pleased council and local representatives were able to advocate and achieve a better outcome for our community, and I thank the NSW Government for its response.”
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