We are in an infrastructure delivery crisis: Wollondilly mayor

Wollondilly Shire Council says it will advocate to maintain existing protections for its rural lands in the face of pressure from developer lobbyists calling for the removal of these protections, potentially opening up more agricultural land for housing.

At November’s council meeting, Mayor Matt Gould expressed concerns about recent comments from the Urban Taskforce Australia calling on the State Government to ignore the Metropolitan Rural Area (MRA) and to allow development in rural areas.

“Our rural lands are key to Wollondilly. These beautiful and productive rural areas are protected from overdevelopment under state planning rules, giving the power to councils and local communities to look after these special areas,’’ the mayor said.

“Council fought hard to get these protections in the first place, and they are critical to not only safeguarding agriculture within Wollondilly but also protecting our Shire from inappropriate development in places that don’t have the infrastructure needed to support it.

“Removing these protections would be not only be catastrophic to some of the most important land in Greater Sydney, but would also repeat some of the worst mistakes of previous governments in allowing development in areas lacking the most basic enabling infrastructure.

“Once the damage is done, it can’t be reversed.’’

Mayor Gould said council recognises that there is a housing crisis and Wollondilly is doing its part to address it, being one of few councils meeting and in fact exceeding its housing targets.

However, he pointed out that housing supply was being slowed by lack of infrastructure, particularly water, wastewater and transport.

“Unfortunately, the CEO of the Urban Taskforce is ill-informed of the housing challenges in Western Sydney,’’ Mayor Gould said.

“As I have flagged in the past, and consistent with the calls across local government, we are in an infrastructure delivery crisis.

“In order to effectively address the housing shortage, we need to be both focusing additional housing in areas that are easily serviced by existing infrastructure such as transport hubs, and putting additional infrastructure investments into effectively servicing pre-existing identified State Growth Areas such as Wilton.”

Mayor Gould says that he has spoken with or met with most of the mayors within the MRA, and councils will now be collectively writing to the Premier to seek a meeting to ensure “our rural lands are protected”.