A long-abandoned Eastern Sydney rail station is being revived and rezoned, but the NSW Government is already bracing for a backlash.
Premier Chris Minns announced on Monday that the Government would build the first new heavy rail station in Sydney in more than a decade, at Woollahra, about 4.3km south-east of the CBD by road.
Minns also announced the state would rezone areas around the station to allow up to 10,000 new homes.
The rezoning covers an 800m radius from Woollahra Station and to within 400m of Edgecliff Station.
The rezoning would be subject to a two-year consultation as plans for the station itself are formed.
Construction is expected to begin in 2027 and be completed by 2029.
A station at Woollahra was first planned in the 1940s and was partially built between Edgecliff and Bondi Junction.
However, cost blowouts and community opposition to the above-ground station—which included a High Court battle—led to the station being abandoned.
It seems likely a community backlash will follow the plan into the 21st century if the reaction of Woollahra Council is anything to go by.
Woollahra mayor Sarah Dixson questioned the reported minimum $193-million price tag for the station and how the rezoning would address housing affordability for young people and families.
“The only people getting excited about this announcement are the developers, who by the Government’s own admission will be leading this project, giving them a blank cheque to build luxury apartments in Sydney’s East,” she said.
To achieve the proposed 10,000 new apartments, she said, there could be a potential 50 new apartment towers of at least 30 storeys, which she called “a disastrous abandonment of metropolitan planning principles”.
The average price of two-bedroom units at Woollahra is $1.6 million or $900 a week to rent. The Government plans to allocate 1000 of the 10,000 homes as affordable housing.
Housing approvals at Woollahra consistently lag behind other local government areas, according to the NSW government. The LGA population has declined by 11 per cent during the past 50 years while Greater Sydney as a whole has grown by 74 per cent.
Critics have also said there were many more missing stations on the Eastern Suburbs railway that could have been identified.
University of Sydney head of School of Civil Engineering Stuart Khan said on social media that stations including Charing Cross, Frenchmans Road, Randwick, UNSW and Kingsford would have a “more consequential impact on public transport”.
Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest, however, said that the news was a “clear sign we have turned a corner” when it comes to planning and infill housing.
Elsewhere, Powerhouse Group president of trustees David Borger said that “for too long, some of our wealthiest postcodes have been missing in action on housing”.
“If we’re serious about solving this crisis, every part of the city must do its fair share—and that includes the east,” he said.
The Eastern Suburbs train line between Bondi Junction and the Sydney CBD also has the lowest passenger usage rates of any Sydney network line at 43 per cent of maximum morning peak-time operating capacity used by passengers.
The announcement comes hot on the heels of a series of NSW rezoning moves, including at Burwood North for 15,000 homes and the 313ha Newcastle suburb of Broadmeadow, which would allow an initial 3200 homes.
They perhaps go some way to offsetting a major disappointment for the state when it failed to acquire the Rosehill Racecourse this year.
The Government had earmarked the site for 25,000 homes, but the Australian Turf Club refused to sell.
