The future Western Sydney Airport features prominently in Sydney’s latest metropolitan strategy.
The airport is seen as a major catalyst for regional economic growth requiring significant orchestration of planned infrastructure provision.
A multiplicity of stakeholders will make it happen and capitalise on its presence. Do we have planning systems to optimise the outcome?
That the future airport is on the map is a good start because with no federal government commitment forthcoming until April 2014, the Badgerys Creek site officially didn’t exist.
How times have changed. With planning agendas at every scale now driven by employment sustainability, the prospect of a growth generator as massive as an airport is a gift from the economic gods.
The buzz was certainly upbeat at the well-attended NSW Business Chamber conference on WSA. The value of the new airport was declared a no-brainer with the overall impact on the western Sydney economy over the period 2020 to 2050 estimated at between $9.2 billion and $15.6 billion.
If anything, what came out of the conference was even bigger picture thinking which broke beyond the narrative of WSA as a secondary, supplementary airport for freight and low cost carriers into something more akin to a full service facility and deserving express train connections to eastern Sydney.
International guest speaker John Kasarda introduced a provocative idea that WSA should become Sydney’s principal gateway and the site of Kingsford Smith Airport recycled into an urban renewal opportunity.
For well over a decade the indefatigable Kasarda has spruiked his aerotropolis concept with dogged single-mindedness. The concept means having an entire city geared around aviation connectivity. It’s a greenhouse nightmare but perfectly in tune with the neo-liberal times where global city competiveness pervasively drives urban policy.
There is logic in a central mantra of intertwining airport, economic and regional planning. Yet spatial planning generally was not one of the major themes of the conference.
The airport is not an island. Ensuring that planning controls and processes around the airport complement the airport master plan (and vice versa) will be paramount.
This is where critical unstated challenges lie. WSA is purely a federal responsibility. But outside the airport fence there is a more complex spatial governance to negotiate including, for starters, the federal-state road infrastructure plan, local environmental planning by Liverpool and Penrith, legacy provisions of the Growth Centres Commission, and the structure planning for the state-administered Western Sydney Employment Lands.
There is already a good deal of conversation happening which is encouraging, and more is to come as the Commonwealth winds up its obligated consultation with Sydney Airport and gets down to business on a contractual package.
The pointy end of negotiations notwithstanding, it seems inconceivable that Sydney Airport would not be very interested in taking up this option. Why give a free kick to a competitor airport operator, especially with the assurances on the day that there would be no mandated curfew like that shackling present night-time operations. Moreover, at 1700 ha the airport site offers considerably more opportunities for revenue-raising commercial property development than at landlocked KSA.
But as a “game changer for western Sydney”, to quote deputy prime minster Warren Truss, planning and development of WSA requires a larger scale of reference to negotiate and balance what will be conflicting and competitive interests from three levels of government, developers, commercial and community interests.
There has previously been talk of a specialised airport delivery authority from the Western Sydney Airport Alliance and others. But the case for larger scale thinking is surfacing.
Kasarda recommended a “Western Sydney Aerotropolis steering committee” to deal with inter-jurisdictional competition, facilitate joint marketing, coordinate infrastructure investment and environmental stewardship and realise “more beneficial commercial real estate development for all”.
Independently, the chief executive of Lend Lease Property mooted a single airport precinct authority on the grounds that business prefers a single one stop shop client.
Liverpool Council also endorsed preparation of a comprehensive land use strategy for the land around WSA.
Just how to move forward is uncertain.
The Plan for Growing Sydney supports WSA as ‘an aviation and services centre’ but the sub-regional planning required is confounded by the site being located on the border of the western and south-western planning regions.
The promised Greater Sydney Commission will play a role. NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley says he cannot think of ‘a more important single task’ for it than WSA.
The Planning Coordination Forum and Community Consultation Committees now required of all federal airports may well play critical roles.
There is a case for fast-tracking them into existence as soon as the federal government chooses its airport lessee company likely sometime in 2016.
Coordination forums encourage strategic partnerships and dialogue between airport operators and land use planning and transport planning authorities from state and local government.
Adequately resourced, a WSA planning coordination forum may well be a pragmatic governance layer to promote integrated and collaborative planning for the wider airport-related area.
Even starting small, WSA is a massive project that will not only transform its greenfields site but have profound effects on, and planning implications for, the surrounding area, western Sydney and the Sydney metropolitan area as a whole.
Rob Freestone is Professor of Planning in the Faculty of Built Environment at UNSW Sydney.
Unbelievable, growth growth growth, economy economy economy. Not a single word given in this article on the destruction to peoples lifestyles and the environment that this monstrosity will push onto the residents of Western Sydney. A monstrosity that is slated to run 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The west is the fastest growing population of Sydney and by the way the fastest growing economy, so an airport is not needed to “grow” the economy as it is already growing without one.
This is all about the big end of town looking after the big end developers so deeply entrenched in the pockets of today’s politicians that you couldn’t prize them out with a crowbar. It’s also about high end politicians making promises to their constituents to remove airplane noise from their backyard and dump it into someone else’s. The people of Western Sydney are being treated as 3rd rate citizens here with absolutely zero consideration to loss of their lifestyle and health. You want another airport and want to close down Kingsford Smith, then build it outside of the Sydney basin and let everyone get some sleep. Bloody stinks this decision but what more would you expect from the current government who don’t give a stuff about anyone but themselves and their own constituents.
It shouldn’t even be begun. It’s going to be a Stranded Asset. Already there is a decline in the number of planes flying, 1 out of 3 according to Steven Kopits. Passenger numbers are less affected as the planes are bigger today. However it’s the number of planes that is the catalyst for Badgerys Creek. Mascot will do fine.
We have to remember we are in decline, already in deflation and soon overseas holidays will become mostly just a memory. Our whole civilization is heading downhill. All “good things” come to an end, and our time is nearly up.