New postcodes, old problems: The repeated failure of Sydney’s growth

It was a telling line in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2006: the state government “vowed not to repeat the kind of development that occurred in Kellyville, where housing estates went in without upgrades to roads or public transport”.

Twenty years later, Kellyville has a metro station and residents can arrive at work in Martin Place in under 45 minutes.

But for today’s greenfield suburbs, waiting 20 years for necessary infrastructure seems almost unbearable in our ever-expanding city.

This week, the Herald is examining our city’s infrastructure deserts in a series called Stranded Sydney – and what can be done about them.

Today’s story featuring the Raj family from Riverstone, who gave up the convenience of a flat in the transport hub of Epping for the comfort of a larger home further from the city, underlines the difficulties facing commuters from our north-western and south-western suburbs every day.

On Google Maps, the Raj home is an eight or nine-minute drive from Tallawong station. So is everyone else’s. After 6.30 or 7am in most of Sydney, this means one thing: traffic. Those struggling with gridlock on Victoria Road or Parramatta Road should spare a thought for those using the road from Riverstone to Tallawong. This single lane is shared between cars and buses, and the trucks carrying materials to build even more homes.

It’s not good enough. And neither is the insufficiency of schools, hospitals, parks and leisure space.

Opened just a decade ago, The Ponds High School is known for its rows of demountables. It has more students than any public high school in the state, and it accommodates double its enrolment cap.

Rouse Hill Hospital, due to open around 2029, was originally planned without a birthing suite, in an area favoured by young families, until enough funding was found in last year’s budget to commit to it.

In some suburbs, children ride their bikes and play on the footpath because there are no parks. And there are certainly no public swimming pools with bronze inlaid frogs.

We will examine other important infrastructure in coming days.

This series is not to blame the present government, nor the previous Coalition government, nor the Labor government before that. It’s a tale as old as Sydney itself.

But politics and policy are at the heart of the problem.

The Minns government certainly cannot be accused of failing to pull many levers to address the housing crisis. It rightly stands up to endless lobbying by developers to reduce or remove infrastructure levies. But it must find a way to plan and help to fund appropriate infrastructure for new suburbs before families, like the Rajs, move in.

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