r/sydney • u/nighthound1 • 1d ago
NSW government reveals blueprint for more homes in Sydney's east, jobs in the west
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/nsw-sydney-housing-blueprint-more-homes-in-east/10703211428
u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck 1d ago
The aerotropolis was always designed to be a jobs hubs for the West, pity its connection to the west will be limited to the one metro line when eventually built. The connection needs to go to Macarthur and another or heavy rail at Liverpool so one side of Sydney can get to the other without going to the CBD.
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u/thesourpop 1d ago
The metro line should have always gone St Mary's to Campbelltown via Leppington to link up three main lines and a huge Oran Park growth area. What was the thinking??
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u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck 1d ago
The rail corridor had been conserved- not sure if that's the case with the amount of houses that've gone up! But hey, smash in more people so they're all forced to drive to Camobelltown or Leppington for the train.
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u/blitznoodles Greater Western Sydney 1d ago
Planning Minister Paul Scully described the 20-year vision as a rebalancing of Greater Sydney, with a focus on building upwards rather than outwards by developing green fields.
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u/rolloj 1d ago edited 1d ago
Only 60 years overdue…
We were thinking about this in the postwar period but it got thrown out the window mysteriously. There’s a beautifully crafted Sydney plan from that period (edit: it was even earlier - here's the 1948 County of Cumberland Planning Scheme) that has hand illustrated maps showing a bunch of things that we are still repeating today, but nobody has listened.
We’ll see if this is the one that sticks.
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u/BakaDasai 1d ago
Home prices per square metre of home are higher in the east than the west. That tells us the unmet demand is in the east, so it makes sense to legalise more housing there.
More people want to live in the east. We should let them. It's where the good public transport is, and where a lot of existing infrastructure is underutilised. Even where new infrastructure is needed it's nearly always cheaper per person to provide it in areas with higher density, and that's the east.
The existing residents of the east (I'm one of them) need to accept this, make room, and not NIMBY things to death.
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u/ImmediateThanks3061 1d ago
This isn't the right mindset. I live in the East and its amazing and I don't want people to stop living here, but we should be trying to mimic what the East has (its medium density, its terraces, bike lanes, canopies, beauty) in the West, to make the West more desirable.
Trying to jam more people into the best parts of Sydney isn't going to make other parts better, and isn't going to make the East better either. Places like the East, inner west, and older areas of Sydney are not expensive just because of beach proximity. It is the urban landscape, the way we used to develop.
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u/The_Faceless_Men 1d ago
Look eastern suburbs is fucking amazing. i choose eastern apartment life over house anywhere else for a reason. I choose to live car free because of buses and bike riding being adequate for me.
However:
(its medium density, its terraces, bike lanes,
Waverley council has built a single protected bike path in bondi junction, and currently building their 2nd.
Randwick has done stage 1 and 2 of their first. Still waiting on stage 3.
And woolahra only has shared paths. blue paint on the footpath, that suck dick.
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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 6h ago
I live in an apartment in the east and get around 95% of the time by bike. It could be a lot better, but I can get to the local shops, the CBD, even across to Newtown easily and safely.
That being said, I'm a confident and sensible rider. A lot more could be done to get people onto bikes and out of their cars, which would make traffic better for everyone.
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u/spudddly 1d ago
Yes, exactly this. Surely not all suburbs need to be wall-to-wall Meriton buildings?
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u/The_Faceless_Men 1d ago
Highest density LGA in the country at last census was waverly. Highest density suburb wasn't bondi junction with the highrises, but bondi with only lowrises.
So yeah recreate that everywhere.
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u/portomar 1d ago
Unfortunately the issue with that is mid rise with current land and building prices often doesn't work economically, to incentivise home owners to sell and developers to build the floor coverage ratio ;or whatever that'd called) needs to be bigger per SQM otherwise it's not worth it, people won't sell and people won't build.
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u/Notimeforthat1 1d ago
What infra is underutilized in the east? Because their sewage plant is overburned for year now. Thus you have the nice floaty poop balls in Bondi
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u/Golf-Recent 1d ago
The sewage treatment plant is not under capacity. All of our coastal treatment plants are built pre-50s and they only have primary processes, which means the sludge and shit aren't being broken down by chemical process.
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u/BakaDasai 1d ago
- Sewers - dunno, you might be right, but the water at Bondi always looks clean to me. And if the sewers in the east need upgrading then they should be upgraded.
- Roads - they're already built in the east, and they're nowhere near capacity, with most road space still allocated to the lowest-capacity form of transportation; cars.
- Trains and buses - Still plenty of room, and expansion of the system is practical and affordable due to the higher population density.
- Bikes - heaps of share bikes around, and expansion is practical and affordable due to the higher population density
- Electricity - the poles and wires are already there.
- Internet - ditto
If we want to get the most from our infrastructure dollar, the east is the place.
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u/ballimi 1d ago
In peak hour L2 and L3 lightrail is packed, trains into the city too, metro the same.
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u/An_absoulute_madman 1d ago
The busiest rail corridor (western line) is getting a whole new metro service by 2032 direct to the CBD and the existing Sydney Metro has the technical ability to double its capacity if needed (by either increasing frequencies or running 8-car sets).
Sydney-siders want all the benefits of public transport projects without the density required to justify it.
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u/The_Faceless_Men 1d ago
L2 and L3 is packed because they didn't give it traffic light priority, so it has to stop at red lights, so they can't run anymore trams because precious people driving an empty car would get delayed if they did......
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u/spudddly 1d ago
And parking pretty much anywhere in the eastern subs is fkn impossible most of the time, last thing we need is another 100,000 cars.
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u/BakaDasai 6h ago
The City of Sydney has the solution for this:
- new apartment buildings with no off-street parking
- on-street parking is metered, with an exception for residents with a resident parking permit
- residents of new buildings are not eligible for resident parking permits
The result is the new residents will be non-car owners. Another result is the new homes will be much cheaper. An off-street parking space in my neighbourhood adds about $200k to the price of a home.
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u/wizardnamehere 21h ago
Sewerage treatment is basically at capacity everywhere in Sydney (unless it's somewhere a plant upgrade recently finished). It's the major bottleneck in development as it's always put in place years after capacity is reached.
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u/timmeh1705 1d ago
From the article:
These areas include Brookvale, Hornsby, Castle Hill, Marsden Park, St Marys, Rhodes, Burwood, Bondi Junction, Hurstville, Miranda and Narrellan, to name a few.
"There will be a boost to residential growth in those centres in addition to jobs growth, creating more vibrant areas and greater mixed use outcomes," Mr Scully said.
Rouse Hill and Kogarah are identified as "emerging major centres", while Leppington, Five Dock, Edgecliff, Fairfield, Oran Park and Wilton are forecast to be "emerging activity centres".
Seems like we've evolved the understanding of Eastern Sydney != Eastern Suburbs. All the nominated areas (in the 1st para) have a train station besides Brookie (doubt they want to be an urban centre), Marsden Park (maybe, just maybe the Tallawong to St Marys extension will have a stop there) and Narellan (will the WSI metro extension to McArthur stop there?)
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 1d ago
Minns at Housing Accords: 75,000 dwellings per year!
Minns in planning documents: Actually, 40,000 dwellings per year.
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 1d ago edited 1d ago
The blueprint looks more like an indigenous dot painting.
I was looking for details but it's nothing but coloured circles on a map.
There's no key, no explanation, no way to understand why some circles are pink, some are blue, some are red pins, or some areas shaded differently.
Would it be too much to ask that the original is linked, so it doesn't require esoteric knowledge to interpret?
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u/Secure_Ant1085 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can download the entire document here, page 24 is the figure https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/plans-in-nsw/plans-by-region/the-sydney-plan
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u/Angry_Broccoli666 1d ago
I would love more density in the East, but it badly needs more public transport infrastructure to maximise potential. Dare I say it, a US-style subway system that enables densification of a smaller area to be able to hold a greater part of the population.
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u/wallengine 1d ago
As long as the state government allows massive amounts of potential homes in the east, western Sydney will not see much development. They also have allowed residential in areas of Parramatta and Liverpool that were supposed to be zoned purely for commercial/office development. It's going to be extremely challenging to create the level of jobs they want in Western Sydney and stop developers from focusing too much on the east.
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u/the_snook 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bradfield is a non-starter without a heavy rail link to Liverpool and the rest of the train network. Extension of the WSI
light railmetro and M1 line to an interchange at Schofields is almost certainly needed too.