Sydney at risk of becoming grandchild-less city if housing crisis is not soothed, report finds

Sydney at risk of becoming grandchild-less city if housing crisis is not soothed, report finds
  • PublishedFebruary 13, 2024

Sydney could become known as a grandchild-less city if the housing crisis is not addressed now, a new report has found. 

The NSW Productivity Commission has today sounded the warning in its housing paper, which revealed the city is losing 7000 people aged 30 to 40 from its population a year.

Sydney also lost twice as many people as it gained between 2016 and 2021 when 35,000 arrived but 70,000 left.

Sydney could become a grandchild-less city if the housing crisis is not addressed now, the report said. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The city is consistently losing population to other states and regional NSW, including working-aged residents between 25 and 64.

The report found housing supply has not kept up with demand and is forcing Sydneysiders to pack up and move elsewhere in the search for affordable housing.

To keep up with demand and ease pressure on house prices and rents, the NSW government needed to build about 900,000 dwellings by 2041.

Productivity Commissioner Peter Achterstraat warned that “if we don’t act, we could face Sydney becoming known as the city with no grandchildren”.

“We could turn this exodus around by letting people build up in areas closer to the CBD where they want to live,” he said.

“If we allowed three extra storeys on new apartment buildings built between 2017 and 2022, Sydney would have 45,000 extra dwellings and prices in rents would be five and a half per cent lower.”

He said the state needed to build housing in “the right places” to take pressure off residents who would otherwise be creating families, filling jobs, starting businesses and contributing to the community.

Planning Minister Paul Scully maintained the government is trying to push through the “boldest” housing reforms in more than a decade but are being blocked by the Opposition.

“If there’s no supply, there’s no homes for the next generation. The NSW government is not going to turn their back on housing, it’s a basic need,” he said. 

While a meaningful fix to the housing crisis is still years away, an increasing number of people are sleeping rough amid tightening cost of living pressures.

Hundreds of more people have been forced onto the streets in the Inner West, Ku-ring-gai, Mosman and Canterbury-Bankstown Local Government Areas, Homelessness NSW has found.

Housing Minister Rose Jackson said more than 55,000 people are on the social housing waitlist as the housing crisis sinks its teeth into suburbs across the city.

“Affordability and availability are at their lowest levels in decades,” she said.

SOURCE: 9NEWS

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