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Friday, 20 February 2026
In this Edition...
1. HDA is key to lifting housing supply – but will the planning assessors hold back its potential?
2. How did we end up in a housing supply crisis?
3. NSW Treasury fiddles while feasibility burns
... and much, much more.
4. Parking in new developments – it's complex
5. Federal Opposition unveils new Shadow Ministry
6. Government says land acquisition costs are a barrier to affordable housing – so why further burden the private sector with affordable housing taxes?
7. Rents surge three times faster than wages – Cotality
8. Quote of the week
9. Bradfield City taking shape
10. Members in the news
1. HDA is key to lifting housing supply – but will the planning assessors hold back its potential?
The Daily Telegraph’s James O’Doherty sought out the view of Urban Taskforce CEO, Tom Forrest, on housing delivery. Tom spoke on the key role that needs to be played by the Housing Delivery Authority and, more importantly, the State Significant Development team of assessors, when it comes to the twin challenges of lifting housing approvals and converting those approvals into housing commencements.
You can’t live in a housing approval.
The key question is whether the approvals issued through the HDA (after the haircut that public sector planners naturally look to apply) will be sufficiently feasible to allow the industry to get on with the job of delivering the housing the State needs.
There is a stack of great planners out there who work with applicants in navigating their way through the system to deliver the best results they can for clients and the community.
Politicians and poor public service leadership, along with some enthusiastic support from the PIA, landed us in this housing supply mess (see next story).
They now need to recognise that lifting housing supply is the number one priority of the Minns Government and ensure the full potential of the HDA is realised.
2. How did we end up in a housing supply crisis?
Urban Taskforce CEO Tom Forrest recently penned an article for the online industry magazine, Sourceable, where he unpacked how NSW ended up in a housing supply crisis.
Australia’s housing supply and affordability crisis didn’t happen overnight – it was years in the making.
Tom goes back to the “halcyon days” # under former Premier Mike Baird – where approvals and completions were around the 70,000 mark (where we need to be now in terms of approvals, commencements and completions). With a mandate to sell the poles and wires and reinvest in city shaping projects like the metros – things were looking up.
Then a unique combination of local government reform and the attempted ban of greyhound racing saw Mike Baird walk away from politics and heralded the reemergence (strengthened through momentum from the anti-council amalgamation campaigns) of an overwhelming “Not in My Backyard” agenda.
From new Premier Berejiklian, aided by a NIMBY movement that had grown under the guidance of two former northern-beaches-based Planning Ministers, planning priorities began to shift:
And then the Greater Sydney Commission and its subsequent iterations sealed the deal – NSW would provide for everything except the right economic conditions to foster a healthy supply of housing.
Major pro-supply reforms were shelved, including a report by former Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens who, when asked how to improve housing affordability (the purported no.1 priority of the new Premier Gladys Berejiklian) answered with “boost supply”.
That report never saw the light of day.
So, once the momentum of existing Part 3A applications began to run out, housing approvals and supply gradually receded.
When COVID came, the NSW Government was found wanting. Instead of planning for the State’s bounce out of the pandemic period - we went into a housing black hole, out of which we are still struggling to escape. DPIE (as it was known then) worked with the now abolished Greater Cities Commission to deliver volumes and volumes of … well, nothing!
A potential turning point came in 2023 with the National Housing Accord (the second version) and renewed state leadership under the new Premier Chris Minns.
Pro-supply reforms, centralised assessments and density incentives are starting to lift housing approvals. However, feasibility concerns, taxes, and regulatory complexity still threaten delivery and the conversion of approvals into housing starts. This is the challenge facing the NSW Government in 2026.
CEO Tom Forrest spoke with ABC Illawarra’s Nick Rheinberger, and outlined how NSW fell into the housing supply crisis.
The interview concluded with signs of hope - the emergence of the predominantly youthful YIMBY movement, a bipartisan commitment to planning reforms, strong public sector leadership driving cultural change and momentum, and a growing social licence for change and housing supply.
Tom concluded that the wheel has begun to turn. The NIMBYs are on the outer.
A halcyon reflects back …
3. NSW Treasury fiddles while feasibility burns
One would think that a report from the Centre of International Economics, commissioned by the NSW Productivity Commission, which concluded that infill apartments in Sydney was a on average a loss-making exercise game, would be a wake-up call and prompt a rethink on fees, taxes, and charges.
Costs> sale price = a mug’s game
Not so, with NSW Treasury continuing to go on its merry taxing way, even when alarm bells are sounding over developers pulling out of housing west of Strathfield.
In fact, the situation has only deteriorated since the 2024 report, with water infrastructure fees and the ironically titled Housing and Productivity Contribution charge now in full swing.
Our take on Treasury tactics from 2023
We need all the housing supply cylinders firing – infill and greenfield, east and west.
Just as the upcoming May Federal Budget is a golden opportunity for the Federal Treasurer to come up with an economic plan for the nation, the NSW June budget presents Treasurer Daniel Mookhey with the opportunity to respond to industry concerns and ease off on the array of taxes that are presently smashing housing supply.
Feasibility is now the biggest hurdle facing the delivery of new housing and represents the biggest threat to NSW achieving its Housing Accord targets.
4. Parking in new developments – it's complex…
Recent reports on the costs added to an apartment for car parking is nothing new to the property development sector. Underground parking generally represents the largest cost of development on a per square metre basis.
But as to councils starting to mandate parking requirements – thanks but no thanks. We say let the market decide.
Too often Councils use car parking to engage in strange social engineering experiments. They assume that public transport is all that anyone needs. Heaven help you if you are a shift worker, or a tradie, or a family that needs a car to take children to school events.
CEO Tom Forrest spoke with Thomas Oriti, the ABC Radio Sydney Drive host (for whose listeners parking should be of considerable interest!), where he provided context to recent reports on the cost of car parking:
At the end of the day, the market should have a freer hand to deal with car parking requirements. What we don’t need is clumsy local government edicts based on erroneous assumptions about what people need.
5. Federal Opposition unveils new Shadow Ministry
With the election of new Federal Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor, a couple of key appoints bode well for the development sector.
New Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson
The appointment of Tim Wilson as Shadow Treasurer is an excellent decision by new Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.
Mr Wilson has shown considerable fortitude in wresting his former seat of Goldstein back from the Teals and should deliver more cut-through in prosecuting the economic case against Labor.
Similarly, while he was not in the Taylor camp, the reappointment of Senator Andrew Bragg as Shadow Housing Minister is sensible and rewards someone who has tenaciously pursued the Government on its gap between rhetoric and reality.
While the former Federal Leader of the Opposition struggled with messaging on just about everything, Senator Bragg has been tenacious in pursuing the Government’s under-performance on housing supply. He has shifted his own party away from the sugar hit of demand stimulus and has been assiduous is speaking with the property development sector to ensure his policy proposals are grounded in reality. That’s the work ethic that means you keep your job – even when you back the vanquished.
The new Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, pointed to housing as a key priority – sensing that the great Australian dream was turning into a nightmare for many in our community.
Andrew Bragg remains Shadow Housing Minister
While the sentiment is excellent, the Opposition needs to embrace housing in all its forms – whether it is built to sell or the emerging sector of build to rent, whether it a stand-alone home or an apartment.
Removing ideological blinkers and focussing on housing supply in all its forms will place the Liberals and Nationals in a much stronger position to gain the Treasury benches.
The former Federal Opposition Leader never raised housing in earnest throughout her time as leader, but it seems that things are about to change.
Angus Taylor needs to hold the Federal Government to account by sending a message to everyone in the community – from would be buyers to would be renters – that the Federal Opposition has a plan for housing supply.
6. Government says land acquisition costs are a barrier to affordable housing – so why further burden the private sector with affordable housing taxes?
We couldn’t help but notice this line in an NSW Government press release this week on affordable housing:
Who knew??
Welcome to the challenges facing the private sector!
The context of the release was a guide for local councils to identify underutilised public land for more affordable housing.
Well and good, but the problem alluded to in the Government’s press release is that the private sector, after the costs of acquisition, gets hit with a raft of fees, taxes and charges that add to the cost of housing production. This either halts projects or, if they do proceed, the taxes are passed onto new home buyers.
If councils want to provide affordable housing – they should pay for it through their rate base, give the private sector incentives through height and density so feasibility is not affected, and/or as the Government suggests – use a few of your own lazy assets that you never had to acquire in the first place.
7. Rents surge three times faster than wages – Cotality
The Cotality Monthly Housing Chart Pack for February contains the disturbing finding that rents have surged almost 3 times faster than wages, with national rents up 44% over that period.
What’s worse is that Cotality believes that this wage/rent growth disparity is baked in without a sustained lift in supply:
8. Quote of the week
Part of the job of an Opposition is cut through and explain political and economic concepts without resorting to a thesaurus or a Treasury white paper. Hats off to Angus Taylor for plainly linking tax and supply:
It is a clear and simple message that needs to be understood by everyone, particularly State and local governments, who have a penchant for housing taxes, which either kills off supply and/or forces the cost of “nice to haves” onto a targeted section of the community (new home buyers and renters).
9. Bradfield City taking shape
The first stage of civil works for Bradfield City is now complete, with new roads along with potable, recycled, and wastewater systems, and electrical and fibre networks.
Urban Taskforce continues to be concerned over the impacts that the Government’s focus on Bradfield is having on established western Sydney centres like Liverpool, Penrith, and Campbelltown, and on opportunities for new greenfield housing in Sydney’s southwest.
Nevertheless, it is pleasing to see some progress on a Government priority, replete with transformative new “critical infrastructure”, with four (yes … 4!) kiss and ride drop off points and a massive commitment to bike paths.
It’s all part of the transformation from fields with cows and pelicans into a thriving metropolis. Paris would be so much nicer if Haussmann had factored in kiss and ride place making infrastructure ...?
10. Members in the news
“… A $302.3-million scheme in Sydney’s Campsie by developer Arada proposing 346 apartments under the Housing Delivery Authority pathway has gone on exhibition … read more ...
The Urban Developer, 13 February
“… Almost three-quarters of Goodman Group’s $14.4 billion workbook is now devoted to building data centres, as the ASX-listed property giant swings harder into the AI-driven demand for digital infrastructure … read more ...
AFR, 19 February
“… Coronation Property has included 15,250sq m of retail and commercial space at its Inner West Precinct 75 development … read more ...
The Urban Developer, 18 February
DISCLAIMER: All representations and information contained in this document are made in good faith. The information may contain material from other sources including media releases, official correspondence and publications. Urban Taskforce Australia Ltd accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any information contained in this document.