‘Can’t be stopped’: Minns concedes not everyone will welcome Sydney’s new train station
Premier Chris Minns has conceded his government’s plan for 10,000 new apartments in Sydney’s eastern suburbs won’t be met with “universal happiness” but he says his plan for a major rezoning of Woollahra and neighbouring Edgecliff “can’t be stopped”.
After much speculation, Minns on Sunday announced Labor would open a new heavy rail train station at Woollahra while rezoning land there and in nearby Edgecliff for high-rise development to provide 10,000 new apartments in the leafy eastern postcodes.
Premier Chris Minns at the site of the planned heavy rail station at Woollahra on Sunday.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Minns said land within 800 metres of the new station and 400 metres of Edgecliff would be rezoned for the new homes, which would probably be delivered over 10 to 15 years.
Located close to Sydney’s CBD and existing infrastructure such as St Vincent’s Hospital, the new station was first built in the 1970s but it never opened because of local backlash.
“The truth of the matter is, to combat Sydney’s housing crisis, everybody’s going to have to do their bit,” he said.
“We can’t have a situation where the rapidly growing western suburbs take the majority, or nearly all of Sydney’s housing growth when we’ve got fixed infrastructure in other places closer to Sydney.”
A train passes through the half-built Woollahra station.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The premier said he expected the “maximum” height under the changes would be “on par” with an existing 21-storey development in Woollahra. Most, though, would be “less than that”. But, he said, the government did not “have a number” for how many towers would need to be built to reach 10,000 homes.
“That will in some ways be determined by property developers and builders,” he said. “We will get estimates as a result of this rezoning master planning process.”
It was less than two years ago that the government defended not including Edgecliff in the original group of transport-oriented development sites it earmarked for major rezoning because of what Planning Minister Paul Scully described as “limited sewer and water infrastructure” and a railway line operating at “high capacity”.
On Sunday, Minns said the advice from Sydney Water had changed. The advice now was that there was “ample evidence and space for extra development when it comes to the water infrastructure that’s in place – in fact, far, far more than the 10,000 that’s been notified”.
Minns said he did not know how that advice had changed so dramatically since December 2023, though he said “perhaps” the agency had got it wrong originally.
Similarly, the government now says the eastern suburbs railway line between Bondi Junction and Sydney CBD has “the lowest passenger usage rates during the AM peak of any line on the Sydney network”. In 2023, Scully said it was operating at “high capacity”, providing data showing the number of passengers passing through the end of the line at Bondi Junction dwarfed Lidcombe in western Sydney.
Woollahra, just three kilometres from the CBD, was originally planned to have a stop on the eastern suburbs rail line until backlash from locals led the government to abandon the project in the 1970s. The government has resurrected the plan, saying Sydney’s housing affordability crisis and the fact that Woollahra’s population had fallen justify a major housing boost in the area.
The government has said some housing will be mandated as affordable, but it has not given a firm figure. Minns said it would be “up to” 10 per cent.
Woollahra Mayor Sarah Dixson, who has been critical of the plan to open the new station, questioned who would be buying the new apartments, given that two-bedroom units average between $1.5 million and $2 million.
“The only people getting excited about this announcement are the developers, who by the government’s own admission will be leading this project, giving them a blank cheque to build luxury apartments in Sydney’s east,” she said.
The government has also said it will institute a value capture mechanism on new apartments in the rezoned land of between $12,500 and $15,000, which he said would represent a “fair return” on the $150 million to $200 million it would cost to build a new heavy rail station.
“For a return on the taxpayer investment, for an uplift in development and more housing and more opportunities, this just makes enormous sense for us and for NSW,” he said.
It also makes political sense for Labor. While polls show most voters support increased housing supply, greater density is far less welcome among some residents in well-heeled eastern suburbs addresses such as Woollahra.
The government will on Monday announce $200 million in infrastructure grants for local councils tied to how quickly they assess development applications.
The grants, which were first announced by the government when it unveiled new housing targets for councils last year, come as new data shows the time councils take to assess development applications has fallen by a quarter in the past 12 months.
The new data shows a 24 per cent reduction in assessment timeframes, with the average DA now taking 83 days on average.
Vaucluse MP Kellie Sloane, opposition health spokeswoman, is seen as a possible future leadership contender for the Liberal Party, and the government has invested considerable energy seeking to paint her as anti-development.
She has fought back against that claim, saying, for example, that the government should seek to build higher in neighbouring Edgecliff. On Sunday, she said Woollahra was a “pro-housing suburb”, but she said the government was wrong to say the suburb’s infrastructure was underutilised.
“The local school is already at capacity, the roads are choked, half of the people here already live in flats and apartments,” she said.
The opposition has questioned how the government came to its figure of 10,000 new homes.
“With 10,000 new homes in this suburb, you would need to have 95 21-storey towers. It’s a pipe dream, and it doesn’t seem very realistic,” she said.
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