Designing for Resilient Growth

The Plan identifies growth areas but focuses short‑term housing targets within well‑serviced urban areas through infill development, predominantly in the east. By focusing on infill development, the plan promotes a more sustainable, less car-dependent urban form in well-serviced areas. It establishes a boundary for future urban expansion and clearly states that sprawling development beyond this footprint is not supported.

Sydney’s hottest areas in the west have long been planned for growth. While this presents challenges, it also makes climate‑adaptive design essential. There is an opportunity — and necessity — to pioneer cool, climate‑positive urbanism.

This means designing precincts where blue‑green infrastructure forms the structural framework rather than an afterthought. Heat‑adaptation for greenfield precincts in the west will become an increasingly important factor to ensure these communities remain liveable.

To fully support resilient growth, it would be prudent for the Plan to also align spatial planning with the State’s renewable energy transition by encouraging sustainable building solutions, such as requiring rooftop solar installation on new dwellings, promoting energy‑efficient design standards, and enabling precinct‑scale renewable generation and storage, so that new communities reduce both emissions and long‑term household energy costs.

Housing Affordability

Recent research from the University of Sydney shows that early‑career essential workers are now priced out of buying a median‑priced home in every local government area across Greater Sydney and Greater Melbourne, forcing many into longer commutes and increasingly unaffordable rental markets. National-level rental data reinforces this picture: Anglicare Australia’s 2025 Rental Affordability Snapshot found that less than one percent of all listed rentals were affordable for someone working full‑time on the minimum wage.

The draft Sydney Plan itself recognises the global shift in housing – from shelter to a form of investment asset (highlighted in Figure 16 of The Plan, shown below).

The Plan acknowledges that increasing market‑rate supply alone is unlikely to translate into genuine affordability for low‑ and moderate‑income households.

Although the Plan highlights new supply, the proposed affordable housing contribution range of 3–18% is largely driven by a 3% base rate, which applies across all TOD Accelerated Precincts, with only a small number of specific uplift‑enabled sites reaching higher rates of up to 18%.

While it is acknowledged this is below established international markets such as New York City in the US (at 25%), or London in the UK (at 35-50%), the Australian context is still an emerging market, and the proposed band generally aligns with rates being introduced across other states, including recent planning reforms in Victoria.

The Plan features a strong reliance on affordable housing contribution schemes as a key delivery mechanism. Although councils will now be required to prepare Affordable Housing Contribution Schemes aligned with State policy, the Plan does not yet commit to metropolitan‑wide minimum rates. We welcome more clarity on the contribution rates, including more detail around need and viability testing, to better understand the extent of the proposed changes.

Sydney’s Changing Demographics

Although the Plan acknowledges that Sydney’s population is ageing, highlighting that nearly half a million more residents will be over 65 by 2045 and that the population aged 85 and over will double, this demographic shift does not appear to have been translated into any dedicated Response or set of actions. Responses 1–3 focus on housing targets, diversity, and affordability, but do not identify the specific needs of older residents, who require accessible, adaptable, well located housing and supporting social infrastructure. To address this gap, it would be welcome to see the Plan include explicit commitments to ageing in place design, universal housing standards, seniors appropriate housing in well serviced centres and TOD areas, and improved access to health and community services. Integrating ageing-focused actions into the Plan would ensure Sydney’s future housing and precincts can adequately support a rapidly growing older population.

Infrastructure Alignment

The Plan addresses a long‑standing concern that housing often precedes the delivery of supporting infrastructure. Its commitment to using the Urban Development Program (UDP) to better sequence growth is a significant improvement. It also recognises the reverse pattern seen in parts of Sydney, where major transport investments—such as the Northwest Metro—were delivered ahead of growth but zoning maintained very low densities, leaving infrastructure underutilised. By aligning growth with infrastructure availability and capacity, the Plan would help reduce the ability for this to occur in the future.

Innovation

The Plan proposes a more agile structure through technical appendices that can be updated as needed, but it does not yet provide a clear innovation toolkit for councils or industry. To encourage innovation, a Strategic Planning ‘Regulatory Sandbox’ could be established to allow selected precincts and projects to trial new housing models, public‑realm approaches, and climate‑resilient land‑use planning under performance‑based criteria, supported by time‑limited controls and rigorous evaluation. International experience shows the value of structured experimentation: for example, Germany’s emerging Regulatory Sandboxes Act uses legally authorised Experimentation Clauses to enable real‑world testing of innovative technologies and district‑scale solutions within a controlled, time‑limited framework. A similar approach in NSW would create a clear, legislated pathway for innovation and evidence‑based regulatory reform in the planning system.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The Plan notes that the proposed state land use plan will outline state-level priorities and success indicators to guide monitoring and evaluation activities, while additional Sydney-specific indicators will be developed and included in the final plan. We look forward to guidance regarding the indicators, and how they will be measured, tracked and trigger policy adjustments. Sydney‑specific indicators should be measurable, specific, time‑bound, publicly reported, and directly linked to clear intervention triggers, ensuring the Plan’s monitoring framework enables transparent accountability and timely course‑correction across housing, infrastructure, environment and resilience outcomes.

Open Space and Tree Canopy Cover

Sydney’s extraordinary natural landscapes are of international renown. The Plan’s commitment to expanding and connecting open space through the blue green grid supports the evolution of a more generous and accessible metropolitan park network.

The Plan recognises open space and resilience but does not quantify future open-space needs commensurate with housing targets and expected population growth / densification. A plan illustrating the existing and required future green-infrastructure network (i.e. urban forest corridors, blue green networks, biodiversity connectivity, etc) would ensure critical and strategic linkages and minimum open-space areas are identified and incorporated as a requirement.

The Plan sets a theoretical and ambitious target to increase Sydney’s tree canopy to 40% by 2036. Achieving this will require planting millions of additional trees and protecting existing mature canopy. Further detail on how this will be prioritised, mandated, funded and feasibly achieved would strengthen confidence, given current canopy coverage sits at around 21.7% (2022).

Identifying minimum tree canopy targets, soil volume requirements, permeability, Water-Sensitive Urban Design and shading standards for all TOD, infill precincts and greenfield growth areas will ensure clear green-infrastructure and public-realm requirements are feasibly achieved within clear spatial frameworks.

Protection of Biodiversity Values Within Urban Footprint

While the Plan recognises biodiversity values (Response 12), further emphasis on protecting and enhancing biodiversity values within the existing and future urban footprint should be included, not only within national parks, regional parklands and formally protected conservation lands.

Food Security

The Plan emphasises resilience, flood risk, blue‑green grid and environmental outcomes, but the public exhibition materials do not identify a stand‑alone “food security” response or policy stream. We would welcome a food system response being included to protect peri-urban productive lands and to encourage urban agriculture (community gardens, rooftop farms, etc.) in centres and renewal areas via Local Environmental Plan/Development Control Plan model clauses.