Olympic Corridor part 2: Dept Planning to announce further priority precincts?

At present, there have been two announced Olympic Corridor priority precincts: Wentworth Point and Carter St.  However, a new web page on the www.planning.nsw.gov.au website currently only has a place-holder and does not link through to these two announced priority precincts:

In light of recent rumors that Parramatta-Olympic Park-Strathfield is the preferred light rail route, this suggests that the NSW Department of Planning is preparing new materials for release on it's website that will revise and/or add to the priority precincts in the Olympic Corridor.  The choice of this route has been an intense competition with the Parramatta-Carlingford-Macquarie Park route.  Hills Shire and Parramatta Council back the latter route, and this is not surprising as they are advocating for their constituents living in Carlingford, whereas the Olympic Corridor lies within Auburn council LGA.  Hills and Parramatta in last ditch efforts to sabotage the choice of the Olympic Corridor have resorted to hyperbole by claiming the Olympic Corridor is a "wasteland".

However, TfNSW and the Department of Planning are making the right decision of their preferred choice of Olympic Park (if rumours are correct), as:

1.  The Olympic Park corridor comprises over 1600ha of potential renewal lands.  Even subtracting out contaminated lands, the sheer quantity of immediately redevelopable renewal area still vastly exceeds the renewal areas within the Carlingford corridor.  With terrible housing unaffordability and severe limitations on well located housing supply within Sydney, intense housing development in the Olympic Corridor is a no brainer.  Rezoning the Olympic Corridor as a renewal precinct will provide as much as 20% of Sydney's required future housing supply.  In contrast, the Macquarie Park corridor comprises only 300ha and it has already reached a quite mature stage of development.

2.  Many Olympic Corridor sites are available for redevelopment now, and could potentially be developed in time for the opening of the light rail line.  Even in the Camelia precinct, there are already planning proposals which are well progressed.  The quantum of these immediately redevelopable sites vastly dwarfs that of Carlingford, as Carter St and Wentworth Point alone comprise 10000-15000 new dwellings.  Along Parramatta road, renewal proposals include 15000-20000 dwellings in Homebush, which is a third of all new housing for the entire length of the road.

3.  The Carlingford to Macquarie Park segment is extremely problematic in terms of narrowness/crowding of roads that will make it hard to find a surface alignment through to Epping Station, let alone making it to Macquarie Park.  In contrast, the conversion of Parramatta road lanes to light rail is a very good outcome given the widening of the M4 will provide alternative road capacity.

4.  If a tunnel is to be built between Epping and Carlingford, then it will be better done as an extension of the Sydney Metro Northwest network rather than as a separate light rail line.  Building a light rail route to Epping now will mean a more comprehensive option of a metro from Parramatta to Epping will not be feasible for the indefinite future.

5.  A cheaper option is to construct the light rail line only to Carlingford within the existing heavy rail corridor, and this is what has been suggested by the Westline Partnership (councils and land owners promoting the Olympic route).  Carlingford then effectively becomes a spur line of the Olympic line.

6.  The NSW Government is a substantial landowner in the Olympic Corridor, and could offset costs of light rail construction through monetisation of it's land holdings.

7.  Landowners in the Olympic Corridor are also willing to contribute to funding light rail construction costs through voluntary planning agreements.  In contrast, Macquarie Park is proving to very much be a free-loader on Sydney's transport infrastructure.  For example it's 37000 off street parking spaces are not subject to a parking levy, despite being the second largest concentration of parking spaces outside the Sydney CBD and these 37000 cars are making the arterial roads around Macquarie Park some of the most congested.  Sydney CBD by comparison only has 50000 parking spaces, most of which pay $2200 each per annum towards NSW parking levy funds.  If Macquarie Park wants a light rail line, it should offer to pay for it by volunteering to pay a parking levy at the Tier 1 rate, which would raise up to $81 million per annum.

8.  The Olympic Corridor lies within Sydney's Central Corridor, which this blog has argued is the preferred extended CBD for Sydney, primarily on the basis that it has superior infrastructure that enables 30 minute commutes across the corridor.  The Central Corridor (yellow region in the map below) comprises a straight line axis between the dual CBDs of Sydney and Parramatta, and is the logical focus for intense housing, commercial and infrastructure development.  In contrast, Macquarie Park does not lie within the Central Corridor, but lies within the northern arm of Global Economic Corridor, which has more limited infrastructure and challenging geology, and lacks the 30 minute connectivity that the Central Corridor has.  Macquarie Park therefore better serves a lower hierarchy function as a regional centre for the Northern regions of Sydney, rather than as a Sydney-wide CBD.