NSW Government Works to Rebalance Housing Supply

The NSW government is taking aim at multiple planning agencies and changing housing targets to provide 900,000 new homes in the next 18 years.

The state government took 350 staff from the Greater Cities Commission and Western Parklands City Authority and redeployed them into the Department of Planning and Environment.

Folding the agencies under DPE was one of many changes for planning for the Labor state government, which took over from the Liberals for the first time since 2011.

Planning processing times had blown out from 69 days on average in July 2021 to 116 days in March 2023.

NSW minister for planning Paul Scully said they were pooling resources to deliver on the new government’s priorities.

“There were too many agencies operating in the NSW planning system with similar responsibilities, meaning that accountability for delivery was blurred and confusing,” Scully said.

“The system created resourcing gaps in critical areas, while duplicating effort in others, and with the housing challenges we face, it wasn’t fit for purpose.”

Urban Taskforce chief executive officer Tom Forrest said this would spread the housing supply more fairly across Sydney.

“The decision of the GCC [was] to bias the housing supply targets, so obviously, away from the North Shore of Sydney towards Sydney’s West,” he said.

“The Western Parkland City Authority was given an impossible job, to co-ordinate the delivery of infrastructure to support jobs growth associated with the Western Sydney Airport without any authority of funding or infrastructure delivery. 

“Working as an arm of DPE will give them the authority they need to be more effective.”

The change was in an effort to rebalance housing supply across all 43 local councils and deliver on commitments required under the National Housing Accord.

The GCC move was flagged earlier in the week, with chief commissioner Geoff Roberts AM confirmed to be leaving his role by the end of the month.

The remaining commissioners would assist with metropolitan planning within the DPE for the Six Cities Region and provide advice to the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces.

They would work with DPE acting secretary Kiersten Fishburn to finalise the draft housing targets.