The Herald's report this week the Greater Sydney Commission will require new developments on rezoned land to include up to 10 per cent affordable housing is encouraging in multiple ways.
It is encouraging because the commitment would be an acknowledgment by state authorities – at last – that strong residential construction in Sydney must be better shaped to the diverse needs of the city's residents.
Greater Sydney Commission chief commissioner Lucy Turnbull has proposed Sydney become three cities.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The supply of new apartments that will enter the market in the next handful of years will fit the requirements of many. But Sydney's diversity, indeed the diversity of any global city, demands housing options other than an increasing supply of two-bedroom apartments for private sale.
In parts of the city, there is a lack of larger apartments for larger families. Across the whole city, there is an abominable 60,000 person waiting list for social housing.
And there is also a dire need for a middle tier of dwellings to accommodate households in the private rental market struggling to live close to their work or their communities.
It is this middle tier, it is hoped, which will be better catered for by the imminent commitment of the Greater Sydney Commission to affordable housing targets.
But the commission's commitment to affordable housing targets is not just to be welcomed for its policy impact.
It is also encouraging because it is a sign that the commission – in effect a new layer of bureaucracy, in a planning system already groaning under them – may be poised to grapple seriously with some of the tougher issues in Sydney planning.
The Herald has high hopes for the commission, under chair Lucy Turnbull. But the context of dislocation in which Ms Turnbull's commission must operate remains deeply challenging.
An example of this dislocation is the Baird government's unfinished business of council amalgamations. When elections are held for new councils, in September 2017, the opportunity to comment on draft district plans exhibited by Ms Turnbull's commission will be close to expiring.
That could leave the district plans, documents to which councils will be required to follow in drawing up local planning controls, suffering under, at the very least, the perception of a democratic deficit.
Then there is the issue of councils that have not yet been merged. The timetable for a resolution to the issues facing councils challenging their mergers in court, such as Hunters Hill and its proposed amalgamation with Lane Cove and Ryde, or the eastern suburbs councils, remains uncertain.
Nor is a resolution imminent for councils whose mergers have been stymied by court decisions – such as Mosman and its proposed amalgamation with North Sydney and Willoughby.
All of which presents an awkward scenario for the reception of the commission's district plans by the organisations – councils – required to implement them.
Another example of dislocation is the broader issue of planning law reform. Since a legislative overhaul of the state's planning laws was abandoned by former minister Brad Hazzard in 2013 his successors have made noises about restarting the process.
That has not yet happened. The current minister, Rob Stokes, has busily started to change elements of the system through the side door. He is pushing, for instance, for compliant development of terraces through the suburbs. There is a lot that can be achieved through such mechanisms. But Stokes has not attempted to tackle development approval legislation head-on. The current system is overly complex and little understood. It should not be preserved for its own sake.
Then there is UrbanGrowth NSW. The vision for UrbanGrowth, created out of the old Landcom property bank, was and is for the agency to drive high-quality developments through the inner and middle rings of Sydney. That is opposed to the old and easier model of simply releasing land on Sydney's urban fringe.
But UrbanGrowth remains a work in progress. The agency has talked a big game, and has outlined ambitious visions for North Parramatta, around Central, Redfern and Waterloo, along Parramatta Road, and at Rozelle and White Bay.
What UrbanGrowth does not have, however, is an example of success. One of the developments over which it has presided, the sale of parts of Australian Technology Park, came at the expense of the Commonwealth Bank's tenancy at Olympic Park, an area the government is looking to revitalise. Until UrbanGrowth has an initiative to which it can point to convince Sydney residents of the worth of its activities, it will remain subject to the sceptics.
There is plenty of movement in Sydney's planning system, and some of it is encouraging. But plenty remains disjointed. Ms Turnbull's commission should not bear the burden of resolving the issues created elsewhere within the Baird government. For the commission's work to be a success, however, someone will need to get on top of them.