THE Baird government will tap developers to help fund infrastructure projects in the Hunter under a plan to grow the region by a third in the next 20 years.
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Planning Minister Rob Stokes will on Friday announce details of the new Hunter Regional Plan, a “blueprint” to guide development in the region for the next two decades.
Mr Stokes said the plan would turn Newcastle into a “vibrant metropolitan centre” with increased residential density in 19 “strategic centres” such as Maitland, Broadmeadow and Glendale, and kick-start investigations into new development releases along the Hunter Expressway corridor.
“The plan aims to create and support thriving urban, rural and coastal communities across the Hunter,” he said.
To do that, the government will ask developers to help pay for infrastructure projects by establishing a new “Hunter Region Special Infrastructure Contributions Plan”, a sort of levy already used in parts of western Sydney to fund essential projects in new growth areas.
The new payment is one of a few significant changes made to the draft, released in November last year as a way to coordinate planning across the Hunter.
At the time the document was criticised for lacking vision and teeth, and the establishment of a new “Hunter City” was described as “contrived planning jargon”.
But the government has responded, scrapping Hunter City and making a re-purposed Hunter Development Corporation responsible for making the document a reality.
According to the document, the HDC will develop a “Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area Plan” that will aim to have 95 per cent of the Hunter’s residents living within 30 minutes of one the region’s new “strategic centres”, as well as overseeing the planning for land development along the Hunter Expressway.
“Funding will be provided to growth areas for regional infrastructure for the transport, health, education and justice sectors, as well as for open spaces,” the plan states.
