Sydney is racing to build more homes as housing prices soar But where is the land

SYDNEY – Australia’s most populous and least affordable city Sydney has a problem: It desperately needs more housing but is struggling to find a large parcel of empty land on which to build it.

The city of 5.6 million people has a growing population and spiralling property and rental prices that have made it one of the world’s least affordable cities.

But the authorities want to end the urban expansion into undeveloped or greenfield sites in the outer fringes, which has resulted in remote suburbs that are as far as 80km from the city centre and that often lack adequate services.

Instead, local and state governments have been looking for large, open or convertible spaces within existing urban areas.

Like Singapore, which will develop new housing precincts at Bukit Timah Turf City and the former Keppel Golf Course, Sydney planners have been on the lookout for available parcels that could be redeveloped. Turf City is set to have 15,000 to 20,000 public and private homes over the next 20 to 30 years, while the Keppel site will have about 9,000 homes.

But the authorities in Sydney are struggling to find similar sites.

The New South Wales Government proposed converting a racecourse, called Rosehill Gardens, into a “mini-city” of 25,000 new homes as well as a train station. The 140-year-old racecourse spans 57ha of prime real estate, about 25km west of the city centre.

The government offered A$5 billion (S$4.2 billion) – about 128 times the value of the land – to buy the racecourse from the Australian Turf Club, which owns and operates it. But the club’s members voted against the proposal on May 27 in a 56 to 44 per cent vote, due to a sentimental attachment to the racecourse and concerns its loss would damage the city’s racing