Aerial view over Katoomba, BMCC

The NSW Government’s new Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) was established in 2024 to fast-track large-scale residential projects and help meet state housing targets. It has the power to override local planning instruments, such as the Blue Mountains Local Environmental Plan (LEP), and push developments through with less environmental scrutiny and limited community consultation.

This approach is fundamentally unsuited to the Blue Mountains. Our region is designated as a “Metropolitan Rural Area”, a planning category that recognises the unique environmental values of the Greater Blue Mountains, the high bushfire risk and importance of housing that is low-scale, appropriate to the area and consistent with heritage of the towns. The HDA pathway, which prioritises rapid approval of high-density, multi-storey housing, runs directly counter to these planning requirements.

The first case of this HDA Pathway being used in the Blue Mountains, is the proposed development at 142–150 Narrow Neck Road, Katoomba, where the developer is seeking to rezone land to allow nine four-storey apartment blocks and commercial outlets. This type of development is not permitted under the Blue Mountains LEP. Over more than 30 years, the LEP has been shaped by community consultation and expert planning to safeguard both our environment and our safety. To override it now would disregard decades of local planning and community input.

There are also serious concerns about the HDA process itself: it provides little transparency, minimal opportunities for public engagement, and a “high-density assessment” framework that was never designed for environmentally sensitive areas. Fast-tracking projects of this scale risks undermining the ecosystems that underpin the Greater Blue Mountains Area’s World Heritage status, increasing stormwater runoff, and placing more people in harm’s way in one of the most bushfire-prone regions of NSW.

The Blue Mountains City Council is already meeting its state housing targets through appropriate development that complies with the LEP. There is no justification for allowing the HDA to override local planning protections.

The HDA is not an appropriate pathway for the Blue Mountains. The housing we need must be safe, environmentally responsible, and consistent with our long-established planning framework. The Blue Mountains is still not another suburb of Sydney.

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