State releases 1,800 hectares of land near Aerotropolis

The NSW Department of Planning has released 1,800 hectares of land around the Western Sydney Aerotropolis for housing, employment and transport purposes, the largest single rezoning of its kind since the 2013 growth centres and the first to be prepared under the state's new multiple dwellings and housing supply framework.

The plan, notified on 12 September, covers land in Leppington, Bringelly, Austral and the Hoxton Park Road corridor. It identifies capacity for 62,000 dwellings over fifteen years, of which 9,000 are expected to be delivered as build-to-rent apartments within five kilometres of the Bradfield centre.

What the plan maps

Around 900 hectares are designated for urban development, with the balance split between employment lands, transport and utility corridors, and open space. The plan reclassifies 640 hectares of the former Western Sydney Parklands as protected remnant bushland, adding it to the existing conservation estate, which is the first time land in the parklands has been formally withdrawn from a growth allocation.

The housing capacity is distributed unevenly. Leppington's western edge takes 24,000 dwellings, the Hoxton Park Road corridor takes 19,000, and the Austral and Bringelly lands take 13,000 combined. The plan sets a 15 per cent affordable housing target across all precincts, up from 10 per cent under the previous growth centres settings, and requires a minimum 30 dwellings per hectare on sites within 800 metres of a train station.

Two sites are specifically zoned for early childcare centres and two for primary schools, addressing a long-standing complaint from residents that new suburbs have had no services for years after opening.

The servicing problem

The department has acknowledged in the plan that the constraint on delivery is not zoning but infrastructure. A servicing strategy prepared for the Hoxton Park Road corridor identified a $3.4 billion gap between the cost of roads, water, sewer and social infrastructure over the plan period and the funding currently committed.

Water infrastructure is the sharpest constraint. Sydney Water's audit of capacity in the Bringelly and Hoxton Park corridor, prepared in May, identified a required trunk upgrade of roughly 14 kilometres and a staging rule that caps the number of new dwellings that can be connected until that upgrade is finished.

Liverpool City Council has asked for the contribution rates and development contributions schedule to be published before any subdivision approval, and has requested a review of the timing of the first schools, which it says are scheduled for 2031 in two precincts that will be substantially populated by 2029.

The Western Sydney land release in numbers

The Western Sydney land release is the largest single notification the department has issued since 2023, and the first to combine a housing allocation, a formal parklands withdrawal and a fresh 15 per cent affordable target in one instrument. It also revises the earlier growth centres boundary, absorbing 3,100 hectares of what had been deferred greenfield into the Aerotropolis planning area.

The 62,000 dwellings figure is a fifteen-year capacity number, not a commitment, and the department has been explicit that roughly half depends on private subdivision rather than government land release. A separate residential strategy due in December is expected to set the annual delivery path, including any minimum density override that would apply if take-up lags.

The environmental and community response

The Western Sydney Conservation Alliance has criticised the rezoning as an expansion of the footprint it opposed in 2021, and has said it will seek a public interest test in the Land and Environment Court if the department proceeds without a biodiversity offset strategy. The department has said the plan clears the strategic environmental assessment process, a finding that has been published alongside the notification documents.

The Luddenham and Badgerys Creek community reference group, which has campaigned since the airport project was announced, has asked for a binding aircraft noise cap and a commitment that existing villages are not rezoned for detached housing. The plan explicitly excludes both villages from urban development, a decision the reference group has described as a partial win.

Planning documents and the community reference group terms of reference are available from the NSW Planning Portal. The exhibition period runs to 16 October, after which the department will report back on the 340 submissions received during the initial consultation.

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