This week saw the median Sydney house price now nudging an eye-watering $1.5 million.

The Domain September 2021 House Price Report  shows Sydney house prices have had the fastest annual rate of growth on record, at 30.4%. The report also reveals that median Sydney unit prices have also hit a new record high of $802,475. This is the fastest annual growth rate since mid-2017, at 9.5%.

If ever there was a time for the Government to focus on driving greater housing supply to drive down costs – it is now.

The need for an urgent shift in direction for planning in NSW is reinforced by a google search for the Premier's priorities, set by the former management, for DPIE.

DPIE’s website shows the priorities as:

“We are creating more loveable communities by making greener places and great public spaces.

• Great public spaces
• Register your tree
• Greening our city
• Our Mob on Country”

While the benefits of these initiatives aren’t disputed, these being articulated as ‘priorities’ allow us to understand why DPIE has struggled to get’s its head around the importance of housing supply.

Urban Taskforce has written to our new Premier, Dominic Perrottet, to formally put on record our suggestions for urgent reform – with a strong focus on enabling greater supply to address the escalating housing supply crisis. Our number one suggestion to the new Premier:

Amend the Premier’s Priorities to restore the primacy of economic growth, jobs and housing supply as priorities for the public service and cabinet deliberations.

This change alone would represent a demonstrative change in leadership and would shape the culture of those in the planning system.

What is needed now is the leadership and honesty shown by both political sides across the ditch.

The New Zealand Government, led by Jacinda Ardern, has the priority of “Ensure everyone has a warm, dry home” and they are now behind a Bill to address the housing supply side to deliver this. Both major political parties in NZ have joined together to introduce the “Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”. The Bill includes provisions to allow for up to three homes, three storeys high to be built on most sites without development consent.

In supporting the Bill, NZ National Party leader Judith Collins said:

"Housing is an issue that touches all Kiwis ... we see young families forced to save for a decade to build a deposit and putting off decisions because of that lack of certainty.

"To those (who worried reduced regulation would mean a community losing its character) I say this:

Our communities lose their character when people can't afford to own their own home.

"Stronger communities are formed when families can own their home and it is in the interests of all Kiwis to live in a property-owning community, where people put down anchors in their community and have a stake in local affairs; where kids get to stay at the same school; where the politics of envy aren't fuelled by rapidly rising house prices; where our children can afford to buy a home and start a family and growing up in a property-owning democracy."

This unanimous cross party political response to NZ’s housing supply crisis is a lesson for Sydney.

The tools are already there for the NSW Planning Minister to drive rapid improvements in planning approvals and therefore increase supply quickly. (See story three to read about our suggested Housing Crisis SEPP.)

Leadership, the right priorities and honesty with the facts is the only way forward, to get NSW back on track.

Click here to read DPIE’s Premier’s Priorities set by former Government management.

Click here to read “Our Plan – The Government’s Priorities for New Zealand”. 

Click here to view Domain September 2021 House Price Report.

Click here for further information on the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

DPIE's Outlook provides a schedule of planning reform initiatives and other major programs of work and public consultation on for the upcoming six months. Some of the outlined reform initiatives, as presented in the chart above, have the potential to tweak many of the inefficiencies in the planning system.

Throughout DPIE’s reform programmes and processes, Urban Taskforce has been providing ongoing expert advice and continuing to assertively represent the views of the industry. The Urban Taskforce will continue to be a constructive partner and support DPIE's work towards further reducing the time taken for planning proposals, regionally significant developments and major projects.

However, while Urban Taskforce considers DPIE's efforts in introducing changes to the planning system a move in the right direction, we firmly believe that a lot more needs to be done to resolve the mounting pressure in the housing market. To date, the NSW Government has failed to make any substantative change in response to the growing housing demand and the widening gap caused by the lack of housing supply. The state of the market and the current trends paint a grim picture for the foreseeable future.

Any NSW Government response to the housing affordability crisis must be more comprehensive than the reforms presented in DPIE's Outlook. The NSW planning system needs a new kind of bold leadership which will change the current culture and attitudes towards housing development and will embrace increasing housing supply as a major part of the answer to the crisis.

To make headway on improving housing supply there needs to be an overhaul of the planning system. A focussed reform agenda that delivers new homes and jobs is necessary in light of the post- COVID 19 period and the ‘Big Australia’ (increased immigration) policy promoted by Premier Perrottet.

A new Housing Crisis SEPP is one option to provide a planning pathway for significant, high yield housing development projects to be treated as State Significant Development (SSD).

By allowing housing developments to have a SSD planning pathway, the NSW government can ensure that more applications for more housing are submitted and processed faster. The impact of this policy will be evident through an increased supply of housing which will help reduce the sharp price surge of homes in Sydney.

The current housing supply and affordability crisis mandates a rapid and decisive response, as proposed by Urban Taskforce. The well intentioned policy reforms presented in the DPIE's Outlook, no matter how successful they may be, will not alleviate the despair of those priced out of purchasing their first home.

Click here to review DPIE’s October edition of the Outlook document 2021 Planning and Public Spaces Outlook - October edition.

Urban Taskforce has been concerned about the growing patters on some Councils and community groups mis-using heritage listings for the purpose of frustrating legitimate development proposals.

A particularly egregious case in point occurred at the hands of Woollahra Council vs Positive Investment Enterprise and a property on New South Head Road known as Hillcrest. At Hillcrest, Council sought to effectively frustrate what was otherwise a complying development through an attempt to list for the purpose of preservation of the entire site, including the garden, trees, landscaping and curtilage, notwithstanding highly contested heritage advice. 

Urban Taskforce was concerned that the lodgement of this Council Planning Proposal is illustrative of a growing trend to use the Heritage Act to frustrate legitimate and compliant development.  Ironically, this site had been up-zoned by Council only 6 years ago to R3.  The DA proposal was consistent with the controls and proposed the protection of the building façade, noted interior walls and fixtures, and landscaping that have heritage significance.

The Land and Environment Court supported the applicant and approved the development.  Urban Taskforce is grateful for the wisdom of the Land and Environment Court and its capacity to determine matters with regard to merit. Increasingly, this is the only safeguard against the weaponisation of heritage.