Greater Sydney councils named and shamed

New figures show a clear trend of NSW councils underperforming on housing approvals.

Drilling into February data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics earlier this month – which showed NSW the only state in Australia to fall back on its rate of housing approvals, recording -44 per cent – Urban Taskforce found only four councils in Greater Sydney exceeded their targets.

“This data looks at the first eight months of the Housing Accord and a clear trend of underperformance is emerging,” said CEO Tom Forrest.

Commencing in July 2024, the National Housing Accord is a collaborative agreement between the federal government, state and territory governments, and local governments to build 1.2 million new, well-located homes over five years.

Studying the ABS stats by LGA reveals “the mile-wide difference between high-performing and low-performing councils,” said Forrest.

The ABS data shows Burwood Council – in Sydney’s inner west – as the top-performing LGA in NSW, more than doubling its pro-rata targets with 1,078 homes approved – 245 per cent of targeted 440 dwellings.

Second place was Hawkesbury City Council with 250 dwellings approvals – 144 per cent of its target. Coming third, City of Canada Bay Council with 761 approved homes – 114 per cent of target reached. City of Parramatta scored fourth with 2,700 – 104 per cent of target.

The ABS stats show fifth-placed Blue Mountains City Council missing its target, with 74 approvals – scoring 93 per cent. “If the fifth place goes to a council that is not even meeting the target, the other 28 councils in Greater Sydney must be way behind,” said Forrest.

Indeed, the worst five underperforming councils in Greater Sydney are:

“The data confirms what many already knew – that the worst performing council in Greater Sydney is North Sydney, having only approved 44 new dwellings of the 787 dwelling completions in their pro-rata target,” said Forrest. “They hit an astonishingly poor rate of only 6 per cent of their pro-rata target since the start of the accord.”

Since the housing accord began, 50,267 homes should have been completed in NSW – including 35,120 in Greater Sydney. However, the period has only recorded 30,607 approvals across that state – 25,545 for Sydney.

“Full marks for those councils that have reached their LGA targets to date,” said Forrest, “but the five worst councils should hang their heads in shame.”