The latest report by the NSW Productivity Commission continues its series of reports promoting more supply of new housing across Greater Sydney. The report, and its predecessors, support more density of housing across Sydney particularly in inner and mid city areas.
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Peter Achterstraat, the Productivity Commissioner, has clearly heard the NSW Premier’s call for more density to handle Sydney’s growth and has used an array of graphs and charts to present his case. His headline statement is that over the five years from 2017 to 2022, 1500 apartment buildings were built at an average height of seven storeys BUT if the average height had been 10 storeys then an extra 45,000 homes could have been provided.
Sound pretty simple, just increase heights and hope the no-one notices the extra floors.
In some ways Achterstraat is correct in that a little extra height keeps the impact of new development in places where it is appropriate for development to occur.
Once we go up with new housing we must accommodate underground car parking and lifts, particularly for older downsizers.
The rest of the NSW government hasn’t got the 10 storey message as NSW Planning is proposing to champion mid-rise housing that is capped at only six storeys.
The problem here is that once we go up with new housing we must accommodate underground car parking and lifts, particularly for older downsizers.
At only six floors, with a likely ground floor of retail, the feasibility gets very difficult. Sydney should follow Paris and Barcelona with eight storey heights with the top two set back from the street facade. Taller high rise apartment towers should cluster around transport nodes.
The report has many charts showing the drift of people away from NSW to other states and cities due to the excessive cost of housing. Achterstraat argues that the biggest gain of greater density will go to low and middle – income earners.
He uses figures from Auckland’s recent upzoning of three quarters of its residential land that generated planning permits for 22,000 new homes [Contested by analysis from some experts – Ed].
Most of the report is persuasive about the benefits of greater density and height. Two city maps showing density in 2022 in both Sydney and London demonstrate that Sydney is a very low density city compared to London.
But London has had a long history of urban development with its urban squares like Bedford Square and Lincoln’s Inn Fields which was built in 1659. Sydney with its extensive open spaces became a low rise city until apartment living began to become popular a few decades ago.
The major difficulty Sydney has in becoming more like the London map of density is that the low rise suburbs have over recent decades become conserved through a raft of Heritage Conservation Areas and of Heritage listings. The report’s Figure 17 map shows just how much of the inner and middle suburbs are now frozen. Achterstraat’s report states that:
“Today, around a quarter of residential zoned land within 10 kilometres of the city is subject to some form of heritage protection. Most of this (20 per cent of residential land) is conserved by by HCAs.”
So the very areas that London’s map has the highest densities are frozen in Sydney from new development by heritage orders.
The Productivity Commission report argues strongly that new housing density should be close to the Sydney’s CBD where new infrastructure is not so necessary compared to outer and fringe areas. While the report says comforting words about heritage such as “protect heritage in a strategic way that allows new homes in high- demand inner areas.”
The big difficulty in moving forward is the Heritage Conservation Areas and most heritage listings are by local government which generally don’t have a reputation for change. I was involved in advising recently on a development application that looked different to its neighbours and the council planners wanted the project to fit in as much as possible with the neighbouring houses. And this was not in a Heritage Conservation Area.
While councils will argue for their conservation areas and heritage listings I suspect they will also be negative about development that is close to the conservation areas so the 25 per cent of residential land with heritage protection could grow to 30 or 35 per cent if impact zones are included.
It is going to be interesting to see where Sydney’s growth can be located as the state government, councils and heritage supporters negotiate on where suitable land for more dense housing can be found. We may need a new definition of heritage conservation areas that allows generational change.
In Melbourne the YIMBY (yes in my backyard) Melbourne group have been encouraged by the NSW Productivity Report to measure their heritage protected areas. They find that 30 per cent of Melbourne’s residential land within 10 kilometres of the CBD is heritage protected and within five kilometres this rises to 56 per cent. The YIMBYs claim that “This is untenable for a city that wants and needs to grow.”
