The State of NSW is putting its faith in the Department of Planning and Environment as the agency will take responsibility for home building targets.

The government’s intention to wind up the body and move all 350 staff from the Greater Cities Commission and Western Parkland City Authority to the Department of Planning and Environment was announced in June 2023. Last week, legislation was formally introduced to dissolve the commission and transfer the housing target responsibilities.

The Greater Cities Commission was created by the previous coalition government under Mike Baird and its inaugural chief commissioner was former Sydney lord mayor, Lucy Turnbull. It was originally called the Greater Sydney Commission, but its legislated remit was expanded to include Wollongong and Newcastle, creating what is dubbed as ‘Australia’s first global city region’ to rival the Netherland’s Randstad or the Bay Area in California.

The agency was created to coordinate macro planning across the region and set housing targets for 43 local councils in the six-city region.

The abolishment of this agency will allow the Minns government to wield greater control over the city’s planning and reduce the duplication of finite public resources. There are too many agencies with overlapping responsibilities, meaning accountability is blurred.

The new legislation proposes the following definition for ‘housing target’: A target area for a district for the number of net additional dwellings required for each local government area in the district for the next 5, 10 and 20 years, and may include a target for development consents to be granted to achieve the net additional dwellings.

With the change imminent, all eyes will now be on the planning department to eliminate some of the planning roadblocks that are stopping the delivery of critical housing supply across Sydney.