Premier courts 'city shaper' developers for housing fix
Chris Minns is leaning on urban developers to help solve the state's housing crisis, urging the sector to seize its responsibility and help him shape Sydney.
Again declaring housing is the "biggest single challenge facing the state", the NSW premier told the Urban Development Institute of Australia's annual lunch Sydney could become a city without youth if there was no urgent intervention.
The government committed $5.1 billion for public housing in its budget earlier in June, while a signature planning policy involves the blanket rezoning of land around metro stations and transport hubs for higher-density properties.
Mr Minns described those present at the developer lobby run lunch as part of a "bigger community mission" to improve the state's housing for generations to come.
"There's a massive opportunity for builders and developers, one I know many of you take up every single day - to design your buildings with pride, to build them to the highest standard and facilitate the kinds of communities that turn houses into homes," he said.
"It's a massive challenge, one that sits on the government's shoulders but also on the industry's shoulders, the challenge to provide houses to the next generation to demonstrate and ensure that we do not become a city without grandchildren."
But the premier did not touch on some of the more controversial issues facing the industry, such as the presence of rogue operators leading to high-profile failures in a series of major housing developers.
His Labor government has been injecting funding into Building Commission NSW to crack down on what it has described as "dodgy" operators.
During a question-and-answer session with former Liberal state minister Stuart Ayres, who now heads the institute, Mr Minns said his administration wanted "to have your back" and for developers to do well.
"You are city shapers ... you're not just building homes but building a community (and) in a place like Sydney, it's a tremendous responsibility," he said.
Mr Minns assured the sector it still had a big role to play, despite the massive social-housing spend.
"I don't see this is a question of public versus private … we want every sector, in every corner of the economy, working at full capacity and all pulling in the same direction," he said.
