The Liberal Party would establish a delivery authority to organise the closure of Long Bay prison within 100 days if elected in March, as Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane vows the plan to transform the vast complex into 12,000 new homes would not result in a suburb full of luxury housing.
Sloane will on Wednesday announce a new Long Bay Delivery Authority would also be charged with co-ordinating the transfer of about 1200 inmates held at the prison, as well as investigating new transport and infrastructure at the site.
Under the plan first announced last year , the Liberal opposition would close the jail and turn the site into a massive new housing development.
In a speech to the Urban Development Institute of Australia’s state conference, Sloane will say on Wednesday she does not want any future development to “end up as another suburb for luxury housing”.
“Young people are sick of hearing governments say housing plans are about delivering more homes for young people, only for those homes to end up being luxury apartments they can’t afford,” she will say.
As one of the largest coastal plots available in Sydney, Long Bay has for years been coveted by developers such as Harry Triguboff. The billionaire owner of Meriton has long been vocal about his desire to redevelop the Malabar site, which neighbours his proposed high-density development at Little Bay.
The former Coalition government announced it would close the jail a decade ago in 2016, with then-corrections minister David Elliott championing its redevelopment. In 2014, Infrastructure NSW identified extending the CBD to Kingsford light rail route to La Perouse, including a stop at Long Bay, as a way to unlock potential land use.
However, the closure never went ahead. But the opposition has revised the plan, with Sloane labelling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”.
The opposition has previously said it would investigate opening a new prison “outside the city” but Sloane said the delivery authority would be tasked with co-ordinating the relocation of corrections facilities to other existing regional and metropolitan centres, including Goulburn.
The commitment to prioritising the Long Bay closure comes as the opposition seeks to balance the pro-housing stance it adopted under former leader Mark Speakman to appeal to younger voters with what this masthead reported on Tuesday was an increasing desire among MPs to attack Labor’s housing agenda in the lead-up to the election.
But appearing at an Urban Taskforce developer lobby conference in Sydney on Tuesday, the Liberals’ planning spokesman Chris Rath insisted the opposition remained “resolutely pro-housing”, saying the views of “one or two backbenchers” did not reflect the party’s position.
“This opposition, led by Kellie Sloane, is resolutely pro-housing supply, and don’t judge our policies based on the commentary of one or two backbenchers that might oppose a certain development in their electorate because they don’t believe that it is in the best possible location,” he said.
Since coming to government, Labor has taken on a stridently pro-housing agenda, introducing a suite of policies allowing it to fast-track developments and in some cases bypass local council objections. At the same conference on Tuesday, Planning Minister Paul Scully seized on the report, saying “it would appear some of the NIMBYs are back in charge”.
“Opposition members seem to be crab-walking away, and these are senior members of the shadow ministry, the up-and-comers in the opposition that seem to be walking away from it,” he said.
Despite Labor’s pro-housing stance, the government was quick to criticise the plan to redevelop Long Bay after it was announced by then-opposition leader Mark Speakman last year. Scully has criticised the proposal over a lack of transport in south-east Sydney and has argued the site was too small.
Dylan Parker, a Randwick Labor councillor and former mayor, also criticised the plan, saying that “it just can’t be done” . Parker works for Attorney-General Michael Daley, whose Maroubra electorate covers the complex.
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