Sydney’s Next Big Cemetery Could Redraw Aerotropolis Boundary

A plan for one of Australia’s largest new cemeteries in more than 80 years would add 250,000 burial plots across 205ha of rural Western Sydney. The scale is huge. The servicing is bigger. High-capacity water, sewer and electricity would need to extend into paddocks on the Aerotropolis edge, the new precinct forming around Western Sydney International Airport . It signals something larger: metropolitan infrastructure may soon push into land historically reserved for rural use, creating real potential for fresh development pressure. Western Sydney University planning expert and co-director of the Urban Transformations Research Centre Professor Nicky Morrison says the proposal exposes how stretched Sydney’s edge has become. “A 200ha cemetery with 250,000 plots is huge,” she says. “It really is city-serving infrastructure, not a local rural use. “You don’t often see proposals of this scale in Western Sydney and its location just outside the Aerotropolis shows how squeezed the fringe has become for big metropolitan functions.” ▲ Professor Nicky Morrison, co-director of Western Sydney University’s Urban Transformations Research Centre. She says metropolitan utilities rarely arrive quietly. “Putting high-capacity water, sewer and electricity into rural land for one project sends a strong signal,” she says. “It usually means big upfront investment, a shift in how the land is viewed and questions about who ultimately pays. “Once those services go in, the area starts to look a lot less rural.” Location, scale and what is proposed The concept covers three rural lots at 723 and 727 Greendale Road and 276 Park Road, Wallacia, on the western side of the Aerotropolis. It remains open paddock country between Penrith and Liverpool, sitting less than 20km from the airport site. Servicing is minimal. There is no urban sewer network, no reticulated water connection and only local electricity supply. Agency responses confirm the gap. Sydney Water has asked for “water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure servicing solutions” and links to the “future network”. Endeavour Energy has requested an assessment of “high and low-voltage network augmentation”. ▲ The Wallacia site on the rural fringe south of Penrith, outside the Aerotropolis zoning and Bradfield growth area, shown on a map from the Western Sydney District Plan. Strategic plans also recognise the growing need for burial land in Western Sydney. The Western City District Plan—which guides long-term growth around the airport—lists cemeteries as essential social infrastructure and notes rising pressure on metropolitan capacity. Liverpool and Penrith’s strategic planning statements make similar points, even though neither identifies Wallacia for future urban expansion. It places the proposal in a grey zone: rural land outside formal growth boundaries, yet aligned with a clear citywide need for new burial supply. The site lies outside the Bradfield City Centre boundary and outside the Aerotropolis zoning , in land historically kept rural rather than identified for urban expansion. Earlier iterations drew local resistance. In 2021 residents raised concerns about “two cemeteries” on the village edge as a separate burial proposal progressed for the Wallacia Golf Course ( concept rendering, top image ). The proposal sought to convert part of the golf course into a cemetery of roughly 22ha, with plans ranging from 27,000-40,000 burial plots. It received development consent with deferred commencement conditions. In 2023 the NSW Government ordered a review into the golf course proposal’s suitability after sustained community pressure, adding to long-running tension over cemetery expansion in the district. The current proposal is being assessed as State Significant Development and is moving through its Concept Development Application phase. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is preparing to follow. No detailed servicing design has been lodged. Scale, staging and the wider cemetery picture A cemetery of this size is rare in Australia. The closest recent comparison is Macarthur Memorial Park that opened in April as Sydney’s first new crown cemetery in 85 years. ▲ The Sanctuary Chapel at Macarthur Memorial Park opened in April. Macarthur covers 113ha and includes capacity for 136,000 burial plots and more than 300,000 ash interments. The Wallacia concept is 92.6ha, or 82 per cent bigger, and will allow for 114,000 more burial plots. Construction would unfold in six stages with internal roads, memorial gardens, a chapel, administration buildings and supporting landscape works. Nationally, only a handful of cemeteries operate at comparable scale. Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney spans about 286ha and holds more than a million burial plots. Macquarie Park Cemetery in Sydney’s north-west has about 90,000 interments on 59ha, while Centennial Park in Adelaide holds around 200,000 plots on about 40 hectares. Wallacia would be second only to Rookwood for future supply. Demand underpins the scale. Cemeteries &amp; Crematoria NSW’s Metropolitan Sydney Cemetery Capacity Report warned in a 2017 report “cemetery capacity in metropolitan Sydney would be exhausted around 2051, with likelihood of unavailability of burial plots… from 10 or more years before that time”. A single project offering 250,000 plots shifts long-term supply but it also concentrates a metropolitan function in a rural pocket once insulated from major servicing. ▲ An aerial view of the three rural lots at Wallacia proposed for the 205ha cemetery development. Morrison says size alone carries consequences. “A development of this size will change how Wallacia feels over time,” she says. “More traffic, more visitors, a different landscape identity and rising expectations for further change. “These projects can divide communities because they alter both the character and the trajectory of a small rural place.” Fringe pressures and Aerotropolis connection The site is just beyond the Aerotropolis, the wider precinct planned for jobs, logistics, advanced manufacturing and large-scale infrastructure anchored by the new airport. Morrison says its location shapes how the area will grow, with servicing and traffic able to feed into the city forming around the airport. “Given how close the site is, it inevitably becomes part of the wider Aerotropolis picture,” she says. “The servicing and traffic it brings will interact with airport access and surrounding networks. “Proximity matters. This could operate as a buffer, or it could nudge urban pressures further south.” Morrison says Wallacia exposes the clash between rural expectations and big-city functions. “This proposal really highlights how messy the fringe transition has become,” she says. “Rural land is being asked to do a lot at once—farming, biodiversity, recreation and now large institutional uses—without a clear metropolitan plan for how the rural edge should evolve.” She says big servicing upgrades tend to reshape what landowners and developers expect next. “Almost always. When metropolitan-level servicing arrives, expectations change—land values rise, pressure builds for more activity, and councils often face calls to ‘match’ the zoning to the infrastructure. “Infrastructure has a way of pushing the city outward, even quietly.” Where next The proposal now moves toward its EIS, with major servicing questions still open. For planners, the project tests how far metropolitan Sydney pushes beyond the Aerotropolis. For landowners and developers, it highlights how major servicing can open the door to new possibilities on land once dismissed as off-limits. Morrison says the project has potential to shape the future of the district. It could keep the area rural if the cemetery becomes the only major use and the government holds the line on zoning, or it could soften the rural edge and invite further development once water, sewer and power extend into the precinct. “Sydney needs more burial space, but running metropolitan-scale infrastructure deep into rural areas inevitably shifts the city’s edge,” she says. “The key question is whether this locks in a long-term rural buffer or slowly opens the door to further urbanisation.”

Sydney’s Next Big Cemetery Could Redraw Aerotropolis Boundary

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