27 April 2010
A new report, to be released today, reveals that Melbourne is on-track to overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city.
The Urban Taskforce’s chief executive, Aaron Gadiel, said that the forecasts painted a picture of a global city in decline.
“If we see a business-as-usual approach by government, Sydney will fail to meet the Metropolitan Strategy housing targets,” Mr Gadiel said.
“New housing construction will limp along at the 2000s average.
“This means Sydney’s annual rate of population growth will fall from a projected 1.1 per cent to just 0.9 per cent a year.
“Melbourne with its long-term population growth of 1.3 per cent a year, will displace Sydney as Australias largest city in 2037.
“This should alarm every Sydneysider,” Mr Gadiel said.
Without reform, the report finds that by 2020 NSW could enter a downward spiral as the nation faces the demographic challenges of an ageing population – poor housing affordability, lower immigration, less workers, a shrinking tax base and a greater likelihood economic growth will decline alarmingly.
Mr Gadiel said the Going Nowhere report shows that at mid-2009, the resident population of Sydney was approximately 500,000 larger than that in Melbourne, down from a 660,000 size advantage in 2001.
“The gap between Sydney and Melbourne is already closing rapidly – Sydneys lead has been reduced by 20 per cent over the space of just eight years,” Mr Gadiel said.
“Over the past decade, Melbourne has proved far more capable of accommodating extra people than Sydney.”
Victoria is currently building new homes at twice the rate of NSW and Melbournes population is projected to increase to 5.7 million by 2036.
“If the recently revised state government Metropolitan Strategy housing targets for Sydney are delivered, then Sydneys population in 2036 would remain greater than that in Melbourne,” Mr Gadiel said.
“However, that’s simply not going to happen without significant reform of the planning system in the regime of development levies.
“Without reform the new supply of additional homes would only reach 17,000 a year, well below the minimum 25,000 a year that would be required for Sydney to keep its head above water.”
The Urban Taskforce is advocating a 12 point plan for the reform of NSWs planning system. This plan would:
- introduce new statutory objectives for the planning system, based around the principles of: supporting the states economy; promoting ecologically sustainable development; promoting liveable communities; managing impacts on public infrastructure; and promoting private investment by respecting property rights;
- impose new rules to limit bureaucratic and political games by ensuring that development meeting pre-determined standards is entitled to approval;
- force consent authorities to deal with matters promptly, within a deemed-to-comply timetable;
- reduce uncertainty by clearly defining the matters that can be considered in the development assessment process;
- ensure that a private property owner is properly compensated for removal of land use rights by the government;
- reduce and reform the highest local council development levies in Australia;
- redesign state infrastructure contribution levies so that economic distortions are reduced and there is greater transparency;
- emulate Victoria by introducing stamp duty concessions for off-the-plan home purchases;
- reform the template being used in the preparation of new local environmental plans – so it genuinely promotes good urban outcomes and reduces over-regulation;
- progress the rezoning of land for development as promised in numerous strategies and give proponents Queensland-style appeal rights when rezoning proposals are unreasonably refused or delayed;
- improve the handling of state and regionally significant projects by improving the expertise of those assessing the applications; and
- remove the ability of bureaucrats and politicians to second guess the market and/or take into account the loss of trade that might be suffered by existing businesses as a result of new development.
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
