The New South Wales government has sold more than two-thirds of publicly owned sites identified as surplus and suitable for housing to private developers as a result of its much-vaunted statewide property audit.
Many sites are being sold without requirements for social or affordable housing.
Despite a Labor policy directing that government land suitable for housing should be prioritised for public housing, Homes NSW has bought just three of the 55 sites that have been identified for sale. It is now in the planning stage to construct 208 homes. It has expressed interest in a further seven sites.
“Homes NSW and Landcom have a first right of refusal on all sites identified as part of the land audit,” a spokesperson for the Department of Lands said. “Approximately a third of all sites identified have been transferred to or are currently undergoing due diligence by Homes NSW or Landcom.”
Another way of putting it: more than two-thirds of the land is going to private developers.
“It’s increasingly clear that this land audit is actually a scam – and it’s those struggling with the housing crisis who will suffer from this broken promise,” the NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong said.
“What was an election commitment to identity public land in order to deliver more social and affordable housing has been exposed for what it really is – a systematic way of selling off public land to the highest bidder with no requirement for any social or affordable housing,” she said.
The government has, however, boosted the number of social houses on sites it already owns, with 1,711 homes added to the stock since it came to office.
The sale of surplus land is part of the Minns Labor government’s plan to deliver up to 30,000 homes through the $6.6bn Building Homes for NSW program announced in the 2024-25 budget.
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The government promised to build 8,400 public homes and a further 21,000 affordable and market-rate homes.
But progress has been slow. Leong said not a single new home had been built two years into the program.
Despite the acute shortage of public housing and long waiting lists, the government had disposed of livable homes to the private sector.
For example, three terrace houses in Rozelle, which were acquired during by Roads and Maritime during the building of WestConnex, were sold off to the private market in April. They sold for between $1.6m and $2.33m.
A review of government sales by Guardian Australia found that most of the vacant land being sold by the Minns government is going to private sector developers, with no firm requirements for social or affordable housing as part of the terms of sale.
The sites included:
The dive site for WestConnex at Camperdown will not have any social or affordable housing, although the project will earmark 230 units for essential worker homes out of a likely 600 units, because of its proximity to the Royal Prince Alfred hospital.
A site at 164 Talavera Road, Marsfield, also owned by Roads and Maritime, was sold for $4.4m to a developer for high-density development. The agent on the sale, Ray White’s Peter Vines, said there was no requirement for social or affordable housing. The buyer intended to build student accommodation, he said.
A major site at 870 Windsor Road, Rouse Hill, not far from the new metro station, is at the tender stage. The CBRE agent Ben Wicks said there were no firm requirements from the government about levels of social and affordable housing. Bidders had been invited to put in multiple proposals that included social and affordable housing as well as build-to-rent projects, he said.
A spokesperson for the minister for lands and property, Steve Kamper, said: “The land audit has so far identified surplus government sites capable of delivering more than 9,000 homes.
“Any proceeds from surplus government sites developed into housing by the private sector will be directed back into the construction of new public housing.”
But this is not as it seems. Leong insisted that she has been told that a Treasury policy requires land sale proceeds to be returned to the department that owned the land – often the roads, education or health departments.
NSW Homes clarified that “the sale of any private housing on these sites will be used to build public housing”. At this stage the amount of money it had received was “nil”.
Labor’s shifting sands
At the 2022 NSW Labor policy conference, 800 delegates unanimously endorsed an ambitious public housing program. It committed the state Labor party to introducing laws banning “the sale, leasing, or outsourcing of any public housing assets or services”.
The resolution also required Labor to increase the number of public dwellings “at a rate exceeding private developments”.
In the lead-up to the March state election, Labor promised residents of Sydney’s Redfern and Waterloo public housing estates that a Minns government would tear up the Coalition government’s plans to redevelop these estates.
After taking the reins, however, the premier, Chris Minns, sought to redefine his election commitments.
As he explained, his promise to “freeze the sale of all public and social housing” didn’t mean freezing existing plans to demolish an entire estate at Waterloo and rebuild it with the private sector. Instead he would improve it by ensuring that 30% of units remained social housing.
Announcing the policy of selling off surplus land for housing in May 2023, Minns said his objective was to ensure each new block would include 30% social, affordable or inclusive housing.
“It’s not privatisation even by the loosest definition of it,” he said.
“We were very consistent and clear about our plans in relation to government land prior to the last election,” he said.
Homes NSW projects
Homes NSW has acquired some sites and there will be some new public housing built.
The historic Clothing Store at Eveleigh, near Redfern, will be developed by Homes NSW into 500 units with 50% public housing.
Two sites at Box Hill and Riverstone will be transferred to Homes NSW for potential development of almost 50 social and affordable homes and more than 35 market homes.
The government said a further nine sites across Sydney and three sites in regional NSW had been identified for future housing development by either Landcom or in partnership with the private sector, to allow the estimated delivery of more than 1,300 market and affordable homes.
But Landcom developments do not necessarily deliver affordable housing options, with its brief being to act as a publicly owned commercial developer.
“If the NSW Labor government won’t even build public housing on public land that they already own, where will they build it?” Leong said.
“Instead of identifying publicly owned land on which to deliver homes, NSW Labor has simply identified more things they want to flog off – this isn’t an ‘audit’ so much as a stocktake sale.”
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