The Sydney Metropolitan Strategy: Implementation Challenges

Abstract

The New South Wales (NSW) Labour Government released the Metropolitan Strategy for metropolitan Sydney in December 2005 (entitled City of Cities: A Plan for Sydney’s Future). This was the first comprehensive strategy for accommodating Sydney’s growth and development since 1994. The strategy was reviewed in 2010 and a new version (entitled Metropolitan Plan for Sydney 2036) released. With a new (conservative) coalition government elected in 2011 a further strategy (entitled A Plan for Growing Sydney) was released in 2014. This paper provides an overview of the successive strategies, which have had consistent elements. There has been a particular focus on creating stronger employment centres in suburban Sydney to ‘balance out’ the strong growth of central Sydney, thereby reducing commuting time and congestion while providing employment and other activities closer to where people live. The paper also examines the implementation arrangements and the extent to which they have succeeded. The implementation of the plan has been hampered by several factors. The State Government is responsible for metropolitan planning and for setting regional development strategies, but lacks the fiscal resources to implement the plan. The Sydney metropolitan region stretches 65 km east to west and 40 km north to south and includes over 40 local governments. There is no metropolitan level of governance, which means there is no ‘independent’ champion of metropolitan planning aims. Since local governments also face tax constraints, they tend to focus on meeting local needs rather than metropolitan ones.

A proposed Greater Sydney Commission holds the promise of more effective implementation of metropolitan planning aims, though weaknesses in infrastructure funding arrangements and ensuring ‘whole-of-government’ support, are enduring.