An inner Sydney council has voted to go ahead with a controversial plan to build thousands of high-rise dwellings during a heated meeting which saw frequent interruptions and threats to clear the public gallery.
At a special meeting in Ashfield on Tuesday night, Inner West council voted to fast-track its Our Fairer Future plan, which will see as many as 31,000 homes built in the LGA over the next 15 years, for approval by the New South Wales government.
Labor councillors, led by the mayor, Darcy Byrne, used their majority to endorse the plan 8-7, despite opposition from Greens, Liberal and independent councillors.
The plan includes the rezoning of parts of Ashfield, Dulwich Hill and Marrickville to allow high-rises of up to 22 storeys, although the buildings proposed are mostly between six and 11 storeys.
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It has been met with fierce opposition from some residents, in part because of the high concentration of developments in the suburbs. Several hundred people staged a protest outside a council forum on the plan last week, although many spoke in its favour at the event.
During Tuesday’s meeting, there were frequent interjections and cheering and booing both for and against the plans. References to the community consultation process drew laughter and Byrne threatened to clear the gallery several times.
When the first vote passed, loud chants of “scrap the plan” could be heard in the chamber.
Earlier, Byrne said: “If we scrap the plan tonight, we didn’t do anything to increase housing supply. What we know is that, in 10 years’ time, the problem, which is already at crisis level, will be far worse.”
The council created the plan after objecting to the state government’s transport-oriented development (Tod) zones, which allow six or seven-storey unit blocks within a 400m radius of train stations, and would see 7,800 homes built in the inner west within five years.
The Our Fairer Future plan will initially commit only 2% of units to affordable housing in the newly up-zoned areas. An amendment on Tuesday would require a 20% affordable housing contribution for any additional floor space beyond the new baseline, an incentive which has also been used by the City of Sydney.
One Greens councillor, Izabella Antoniou, praised this addition, but called for a deferral of the plan.
“The Nimby-Yimby divide is very convenient because it flattens the issue, gags opposition and obscures the details of what’s actually going on,” she said.
The council will now ask the state government to remove the application of the Tod reforms so it can go ahead with its own plans allowing more homes to be built. The Inner West council is already partnering with the state government to rezone and develop about 8,000 new homes along Parramatta Road in Leichhardt and Camperdown.
The council has also proposed restoring the site of the former psychiatric hospital in Callan Park in Lilyfield and rejuvenating its extensive parklands to create another green space for the city.
