Edgecliff Station

Speech by Peter Tulip to Woollahra Local Planning Panel
In support of 203-233 New South Head Rd, Edgecliff 24/85478

17 October, 2024

Audio (beginning at 8:00)

My name is Peter Tulip.  I am a member of Sydney YIMBY, a member-based group that advocates for more housing.  I am also chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, a think tank that supports free markets. 

I do not live in Edgecliff. I would like to speak on behalf of others who also live outside the area who need more housing to be built.  We need to speak up for them.  Otherwise, their need for shelter is going to be obscured by the less important concerns of local residents.

Sydney has a housing crisis, the solution to which is to build more housing.

There is nowhere better to do that than at Edgecliff station.  It is a 5 minute commute to the CBD.  It is on a major road -- already a lively place -- so the change in the neighbourhood will be less noticeable. The buildings that the proposal replaces are unattractive.

Most important, Woollahra council is one of the most over-priced areas in Australia.  In 2022 the average apartment in Woollahra sold for $2½ million, almost twice what it cost to supply.

A huge body of research shows that this over-pricing occurs because local planning bodies, like this panel, say no to new housing.

We especially need higher density in inner suburbs.  That is where the excess demand for housing is most severe, as the NSW Productivity Commission has recently documented.

But Woollahra council is not doing its fair share.  Over the past three years, the number of dwellings in the Woollahra LGA grew by a paltry half a percent a year, one of the lowest growth rates in Sydney.

It is up to this panel to turn those inadequate growth rates around.

I’m not saying that the staff’s concern with “character” is wrong.  That’s a value judgment they are entitled to.  However, opinion polls tell us that the public cares much more about housing affordability. Its near the top of their concerns while neighbourhood character doesn’t even get mentioned.

If the staff’s recommendation is accepted, the housing affordability crisis will get worse.