State governments of both sides have created policies that are jamming hundreds of thousands of new residents into “growth precincts” which are infrastructure wastelands. All these designated growth areas are in western Sydney. Out of the 16 the government has nominated,12 are within Blacktown Council’s borders. Doesn’t seem fair? You haven’t heard the half of it yet.
Areas like Blacktown have been doing the heavy lifting on population growth in Sydney.Rob Homer
Here’s a little urban development history lesson. When so-called “green fields” land,say a dairy farm or orchard,is rezoned from agricultural land to housing,it creates,out of thin air,a massive increase in its value. Developers like to call it “uplift”.
This occurs by the stroke of an official pen. Now you see a farm,abracadabra,now you see a gigantic pile of cash. It is a functioning magic pudding of wealth creation.
Up to 2010,a small portion of this windfall gain was levied to pay for the facilities all the residents of these new areas would need to make their communities habitable:things like libraries,community centres and swimming pools. The levies went to councils,which built the facilities.
Nobody lost anything by this arrangement. Developers factored the levy into the price they offered the farmer for the land. The farmer still got paid several multiples of his or her wildest dreams of how much the land might be worth.
Blacktown has one public swimming pool per 100,000 people.Wolter Peeters
In 2010,this provision was abolished. No amount of pleading with the Liberal-National government over the last 12 years has persuaded them to lift a finger to correct this extreme inequity.
Instead,thanks to relentless rezoning and land releases by the NSW government,we have vast new housing estates with homes built cheek-by-jowl. The streets are even too narrow to park in,so fixated are the developers on jamming in the absolute maximum possible number of dwellings.
These new areas are community infrastructure deserts. Our part of Sydney often experiences summer temperatures 10 or more degrees hotter than beach-side suburbs with their cool nor’easters.
As excellent recent reporting by,Blacktown Council area has one swimming pool for every 77,000 people. In less than 20 years,that number will be one per 100,000. By contrast,if you live in the City of Randwick you have a choice of nine pools (one per 17,000 people). In the same period,that will increase to just under 19,000. But don’t feel too bad,there are also nine beaches.
The whole Manly LGA is a long string of beautiful beaches.James Brickwood
And don’t get me started on the northern beaches with its 18 pools,one per 15,000 people,rising to 17,000. And,of course,the whole LGA is basically a 30 kilometre string of endless surf beaches.
We have no beaches in Blacktown. We have acquired land to build new pools but,because of this NSW government policy,we have no funding whatsoever to build them. We are raising whole generations of children with nowhere they can learn to swim. One of our few swim centres has more than 4000 kids enrolled and has to turn away hundreds more every week.
We have absorbed 100,000 new residents in the last decade or so and,because of this policy,haven’t been able to build a single pool or library or community centre for any of these families. In the next two decades,the government plans to send us 200,000 more new neighbours.
Without a change in this policy,they will all be sharing the existing facilities we have right now. Just as we have been hamstrung for the past 12 years,council will not be able to build anything new for them either.
This is diabolically unfair. It is playing out right across north-west and south-west Sydney as we groan under the population pressure being piled onto us by people in Macquarie Street.
Around where I live,people are fed up with “second-class citizen” treatment. They are ready to send new people to Macquarie Street,people who vow to fix this shameful injustice once and for all.
Fixing it will cost nothing but mean everything to western Sydney. Ahead of the election,it’s a complete free kick.
Who wants to take it?
Tony Bleasdale is the mayor of Blacktown City Council.
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