LGNSW's proposal to accelerate housing-enabling infrastructure
Right across NSW, further growth in housing supply is constrained by the timing of the delivery of enabling infrastructure – including roads, stormwater systems, public transport hubs, water and sewer networks.
The current system for funding this infrastructure that is desperately needed for new homes is broken and must be remade to solve the housing supply crisis in NSW.
Councils and the NSW Government are required to deliver essential infrastructure, but under this broken system the funding arrives too late. That means housing is delayed, communities wait longer for facilities, and the cost only goes up.
LGNSW agrees with the NSW Government that the housing crisis is the number one challenge facing our communities, but we also know that too little investment in the basic infrastructure needed for new homes is making the crisis worse.
The NSW Government has the capacity to bridge this gap by making no-interest loans available to councils, by forward funding infrastructure and by expanding the list of community facilities that can be funded by developer contributions.
Under the proposals put forward by LGNSW, the State Government can partner with local government to ensure this essential infrastructure is built, thereby supporting the growth of much-needed housing.
Proposals
LGNSW is calling on the NSW Government to:
Establish a $5 billion interest-free loan facility for councils to deliver local infrastructure ahead of developer contributions receipts, with repayment drawn from contributions as they are collected over the life of a contributions plan.
Commit to forward-funding $3 billion of State and regional infrastructure in growth areas, with costs recouped progressively from the State Government’s Housing and Productivity Contribution receipts.
Update the list of approved infrastructure that local contributions can be used for, to allow councils to build social infrastructure such as libraries that make communities liveable.
Crucially, these measures must supplement, and not replace, existing grant funding programs for enabling infrastructure. More broadly, there also remains the need to index local infrastructure contribution caps, which have not changed since 2009.
For further detail and case studies, download LGNSW’s Unlocking Homes proposal.
