The Guardian 7 November, 2007
NSW helps developers
override councils and communities
Hard on the heels of its decisions to privatise Sydney Ferries and to provide greatly-enhanced profit opportunities for the parasitic gambling industry, the NSW Government has decided to create a new organisation to enforce approval of major new developments.
As Gina McCaffery, the President of the Local Government Association of NSW, pointed out last week, the proposed new body would allow the Government to override local councils and its own planning rules at will, in order to fast-track approval for major developments.
The new arrangements, which according to the government are necessary to meet Sydney’s urgent need for new accommodation, would have a relatively minor effect on Sydney’s affluent northern suburbs. However, they would have a major impact in the western suburbs, where the majority of Sydney’s working class citizens live, and where the redevelopment of huge sites of existing housing would probably be ensured by compulsory acquisition powers, as has been advocated by developers.
Five middle-western suburbs would be expected to accommodate an additional 95,000 homes over the next 25 years. Redevelopment of existing suburbs, which already have roads and services and are closer to employment centres, offer developers greater potential for profits than development of outlying former farms or open country.
The proposed changes were announced enthusiastically by Gail Connolly, the Department of Planning’s Executive Director of Metropolitan Strategy, at a function given by the Property Council of Australia.
The NSW Executive Officer of the Urban Development of Australia, has endorsed the development industry’s call for compulsory acquisition of existing homes. Apparently with no sense of irony, he declared; "It’s just a bit of leverage to encourage people to participate. It’s the same principle as building a road. You have to look at the collective approach."
Ms McCaffery commented bitterly that: "This is the worst relationship between a state government and local government I have ever encountered — there is simply no consultation or negotiation on what is best for communities. At what point is the State Government going to be held accountable for its decisions, which are being made to appease developers? It seems you have to go to developer lunches to find out what decisions the Government is making about planning in NSW."
The Government is also dropping its requirement for developers to contribute towards the cost of providing civil infrastructure for new developments. The requirement, which averaged $25,000 per allotment in Sydney’s western suburbs, was imposed by way of the compulsory "Section 94" contributions, a long-standing source of complaint from major developers.
The Government is echoing the line of the developers, i.e. that abolition of the contributions will improve the affordability of housing sites for would-be home owners. It will, of course, do no such thing. The developers will simply seek to transfer as little of the cost reduction (preferably nothing) to their customers as possible, in order to maximise their profit levels.
On a much smaller scale, an excellent illustration of the Iemma Government’s attitude to housing and development is offered by the sad case of a nineteenth-century dwelling in the inner Sydney suburb of Glebe, which has to date been used as an eight-room boarding house, and which provides cheap low-cost inner-city accommodation.
To date, development of the site has been prohibited by the State’s Environmental Planning Policy 10, which seeks to ensure the provision of low-cost housing. However, the NSW Planning Department has approved eviction of the tenants for redevelopment, because the boarding house does not meet the Department’s criteria for financial viability, (i.e. when the annual rental value, minus expenses, is less than 6 percent of the investment value of the property). The imposition of this criteria effectively overturns the principle of protecting tenants rights, which underpinned Planning Policy 10, in favour of development profitability.
Some people are beginning to suggest that the NSW government should be re-named the Privatisation, Over-development and Gambling Party. That’s a bit of a mouthful, it’s true. But it would certainly be more accurate than any title that suggested that the NSW Government represents the interests of the working people of the state.