Western Sydney Councils Dominate Housing Approvals

Seven of the top ten councils for housing approvals over the last financial year are from Western Sydney, says Urban Taskforce.

“The councils of Blacktown, Liverpool, the Hills, Parramatta, Penrith, Camden and Bankstown are among the top ten councils in Sydney for housing approvals,” Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson said.

“The City of Sydney, Botany and Rockdale make up the top ten with Blacktown’s 2,822 approvals leading the City of Sydney’s 2,470 for the 2013/2014 financial year.

“Six Western Sydney councils are in the top ten for housing completions with Bankstown just dropping out of the group."

He said The City of Sydney had the most number of completions with 2,578 and Ryde, Botany and Marrickville councils had high numbers of housing completions.

“The data is from the just released Housing Data for Sydney on the Department of Planning and Environment’s Metropolitan Development Program (MDP) web site. We have been waiting for the end of last financial year data for some time and we can now assess the state of housing supply across Sydney with the new information,” Mr Johnson said.

“The most important measure is the annual housing completions which have been well below the required 33,200 needed each year. This year’s completions have risen by 2,400 from the year before and have now reached 22,750. While the increase is welcomed the number of homes completed is still more than 10,000 less than the NSW government’s targets of 33,200 a year.”

“Another important measure is the state of housing approvals in Sydney and these have grown dramatically to exceed the previous year by more than 10,000. This financial years approvals are 37,860 which is well above the previous year’s 27,783 approvals. The City of Sydney and Botany councils are high approval performers along with Blacktown, Liverpool, The Hills, Parramatta and Penrith councils.

“The new housing data also enables an assessment of the strength of the trend towards multi-unit apartments. The housing completions over the 2013/2014 financial year indicate apartment completions at 65.5 per cent while the approvals over the same time indicate an even stronger swing to apartments of 69 per cent of all housing approvals.

“With approvals running at close to 70 per cent for apartments this is clearly becoming the dominant form of new housing as Sydney moves from having around 30 per cent currently as apartments to becoming a 50 : 50 city within a few decades composed of half detached houses and half apartments."