The New South Wales Government has realeased a plan which indicates that Sydney will need 770,000 more homes, 50 percent more than the current accomodation levels in the city. According to projections, an extra 1.7 million people will flow into Sydney over the next 25 years, with many living in smaller households, a new master plan for the city’s growth shows. A pattern of urban consolidation is also the likely outcome with limits put on the city’s sprawl into agricultural area. The government has projected that to house 6 million people by 2036, at least 770,000 new dwellings will be required, or 30,000 a year. The key planning document produced by the governm, the 2005 Metropolitan Strategy has now been updated an indicates that Sydney built only 93,000 dwellings, or an average of 18,600 a year, for the past five years.

Developers say the plan’s focus on increasing density around transport corridors is sensible, but they are critical of its implementation. Stephen Albin, from the Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW, said: ”Delivering on the 70 per cent target for infill will be a monumental challenge and not one government has explained well to the community.”

Under the plan, Sydney’s south-west, north-west and central-west will absorb the bulk of the population growth. Penrith, Liverpool and especially Parramatta must grow to become new employment centres so that more people can live closer to their place of work. The plan also notes pressure on Sydney’s existing housing supply from demographic changes including an ageing population and an increase in one-person households of 69 per cent, or 260,000, by 2036. Chris Brown, of the Tourism Transport Forum, said infrastructure was key to realising the objectives of the metropolitan plan. ”Now we have the plan, it’s time to get on with the job of delivering the critical transport links – finishing the Parramatta-to-Epping rail link and building the north-west rail link and M4 east tollway,” he said.