“Unless we act now to bring well-serviced industrial land online, the river of waiting capital will simply flow across the border, enriching Victoria and Queensland at our expense,” she said.
“We can’t afford to lose this critical investment in our economy and the state’s future prosperity.”
The airport takes shape at Badgerys Creek.Credit: Wolter Peeters
She urged the government to properly service existing industrial lands near the Aerotropolis in south-western Sydney.
Development industry figures also argue the existing zoning policy has resulted in swaths of prime real estate being used suboptimally.
The “retain and manage” policy, implemented by the now defunct Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) in 2018, states: “All existing industrial and urban services land should be safeguarded from competing pressures, especially residential and mixed-use zones.”
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The approach was designed to ensure areas solely designated for economic and employment opportunities were retained in the face of competing land pressures.
Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW acting chief executive Gavin Melvin said the anachronistic policy was protecting small tracts of land for defunct industrial businesses.
“The retain and manage policy isn’t the panacea to solving Sydney’s industrial land crisis,” he said.
“The underlying sites are incompatible with the needs of the modern large-scale logistics, warehousing and process manufacturing tenants who are driving demand for industrial land.”
Melvin said the government needed a clear strategy to unlock existing industrial land at the Aerotropolis and to identify the industrial precincts that will follow.
‘We risk losing global tenants to Melbourne and Brisbane and billions of [dollars in] … employment opportunities for NSW.’
Gavin Melvin, from the NSW branch of the Urban Development Institute of Australia
“Without both we risk losing global tenants to Melbourne and Brisbane and billions of [dollars in] inbound investment and employment opportunities for NSW,” he said.
But in the face of the housing crisis, Planning Minister Paul Scully is being urged to consider some industrial areas for reclassification.
A spokesman for the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure said an update of the GSC’s Region and District Plans was under way, including a review of the “retain and manage” policy and other policies to “assess whether they are still fit for the current context”.
“This will require balancing the need for more housing in infill areas, with a focus on additional industrial land supply,” he said.
A train running through Turella, near where there is a large industrial park.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Advocates for reform pointed to an industrial park near Turrella train station, in Sydney’s inner south, which is less than 20 kilometres from the CBD and is included in the second tier of transport precincts identified by the government for greater density development.
The Turrella industrial estate includes bus parking and an indoor paintball centre.
Melvin said the policy was having the effect of “sterilising” locations, which was forcing “sites to sit derelict or the continued operation of unproductive and outdated business practices which do not service the needs of the neighbouring community or broader society”.
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In 2021, Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest wrote to the then Coalition government calling for a review of the industrial lands policy, recommending the government implement a “no worse off jobs test” to determine whether the economic and employment opportunities were being optimised.
In addition to Turrella, Forrest identified other sites that he said should be rezoned for mixed use. This included the Parramatta Road and Sydenham-to-Bankstown rail corridors, and all land zoned for industrial use near public hospitals.
The “retain and manage” policy has been subject to inter-agency disagreement.
A NSW Productivity Commission White Paper in 2021 recommended an evaluation of the “retain and manage” approach against alternative approaches to “to identify what would maximise net benefits to the state”.
A subsequent GSC review of the policy found the policy should be retained as is.
Stevenson said innovative ideas, such as multistorey warehouses, could be used to make the most of scarce land closer to airports and ports, but required government action to remove planning barriers that were impeding these approaches.
“It’s now time for a more forward-thinking approach that will allow a stable supply of well-serviced industrial land to be delivered consistently over time – alongside planning settings that are responsive to changes in the market,” she said.
Source Agencies
