19 December 2011
The recently released capital city productivity comparisons by SGS Economics and Planning demonstrate that Sydney will need strong leadership to recover from its ˜lost decade says Urban Taskforces Chief Executive, Chris Johnson.
The SGS report demonstrates that in the decade from 1990 to 2000 Sydney contributed 26.0% to Australia s GDP but that in the next decade from 2000 to 2010 this reduced to 14.5%, Chris Johnson said.
The report calls the last 10 years the ˜lost decade and relates this to poor housing policies and to a lack of investment in transport infrastructure, he said.
Once again we see that Sydney is not pulling its weight for the nation and it is critical that we correct this.
The new government has begun the process of investing in transport, but our housing policies are still delivering less than half of the numbers of new houses that we need. The metropolitan Strategy calls for 30, 000 new houses a year, but we are currently only producing 13, 000.
The most important thing for Sydneys future is to drive the production of new housing in greenfield and infill sites. The planning system will make the infill sites particularly difficult and a fresh approach to urban renewal will be needed, he said.
What we really need is to strengthen the Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority by combining it with other agencies, including Landcom and Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority and giving it extra powers to work with councils to deliver infill housing around transport nodes and along corridors, as well as green field sites.
To kick start housing supply there are three things the government can do now; firstly allow appeals to spot rezoning. Secondly, reduce infrastructure levies and the third, put time limits on DA approvals. These moves will give more confidence to the development industry, Chris Johnson said.
