You could be forgiven for thinking that it’s Sydney meets The Hunger Games with the naming of its latest state-significant development in the inner Sydney suburb of St Peters, referred to as “Precinct 75”.
The project is in Sydney’s inner west, a vibrant, creative, and heritage filled local government area with a history of working-class, immigration and larrikinism, that has transformed into a modern, gentrified version of itself, embracing a buzzing café culture, live music, upcycling and an artisan scene as part of its new look.
Precinct 75, approved by the New South Wales government in May this year is part of the new Housing Delivery Authority planning reform pathway – a 1.52 hectare mixed use development comprising residential apartments, affordable housing and commercial premises. The site is on Mary, Edith and Roberts streets, ensuring prominence in the area.
The precinct is a paper-perfect example of classic industrial land conversion to meet a modern societal challenge designed to relieve the housing supply crisis.
Set to house about 1000 residents, and to provide hundreds of jobs, supporters of the concept are excited about the activation.
Administered through the Housing Delivery Authority, the development is one of 20 approved and one of 10 under construction through the HDA as part of the state’s commitment to the federal government’s National Housing Accord.
The project not only meets the state government transport orientated development (TOD) missive of “draw a circle near a busy place and make it busier” but contributes to the Inner West Council’s “Our Fairer Future” plan, which exceeds state government density targets.
What’s more, it is the first large scale built to rent development in the inner west, but not the last.
The old Marrickville Timber Yards, located barely a suburb away, are slated to dwarf Precinct 75 in comparison both in budget and size. As a relatively new concept in Australia, fans of the idea are optimistic about the solution.
As it stands, an estimated 1.15 per cent of the total Australian rental market is currently built to rent. Advisory firm BDO is optimistic that growth in the sector will continue, citing a market in its infancy, with only way up. NSW is reported to have the largest build to rent pipeline in the country. So clearly the state government is in agreement. (Who wouldn’t be, with the raft of tax incentives and other carrots on offer?)
According to Coronation Property, which owns the site and is now advertising the commercial leases for the precinct, it’s a veritable mixed-use utopia, complete with a romantic rags-to-riches theme. This means that the conversion of the old Taubmans paint factory site into an up-market, affordable goldmine, with good coffee and a treasure of other retail possibilities, off-street parking and balconied apartments. It comes complete with landscaped semi-private greenspace close to public transport, all with a side of social justice in the form of their bespoke build-to-rent residences – just what the politicians ordered.
On the face of it, what’s not to love about all that nearby amenity and convenience? It is close to the Sydney CBD, world class universities, the domestic and international airports, and just a little further to the east are some of Sydney’s most iconic beaches. However, look a little closer, and there are about 50 shades of grey on those precinct plans.
Taubmans paint factory site into an up-market, affordable goldmine, with good coffee and a treasure of other retail possibilities, off-street parking and balconied apartments. It comes complete with landscaped semi-private greenspace close to public transport, all with a side of social justice in the form of their bespoke build-to-rent residences – just what the politicians ordered
Nation, a subsidiary of Coronation Property, is set to run the residential side of things. They call it renting without the headaches. Pet friendly, amenity rich, furnished or unfurnished, take your pick. The website reads like a swanky hotel, complete with staff who know you by name.
I’ll hand it to them; Nation makes the idea of build to rent sound so reasonable. Noting that if you feel like a change of location, simply apply to move to one of their other buildings anywhere in Australia without the usual hassle, which, if you are a renter, there really is no sweeter phrase.
However, what they fail to mention, and what the Inner West Council rightly brought up as one of 11 objections to the project, is that given the relatively sparse number of two and three bedroom apartments in the complex compared to single person dwellings, there is not a lot of room for a change in personal circumstance.
While a resident may theoretically move between apartments in the same building, what would be the point when options for an increase in personal space to match changing lifestyles are so limited? the council said.
It is a fair point, given the ideology that build to rent is a long-term housing alternative to home ownership. Floor ratios of apartments are extremely limited, starting from 30 square metres, with only nine three-bedroom dwellings up for grabs. The apartments are designed to cater for predominantly single people who desire the ease and amenity of such a lifestyle.
It is an interesting approach with a good set of justifications. However, given the increasing amount of research that suggests apartment living is becoming a family game (if out of necessity more than anything), one has to wonder why the government is still pandering to a narrow-minded set of assumptions for higher density housing development, particularly when its own policies are pushing for more residents squashed into taller and smaller spaces.
The Precinct is even going to have a small percentage of “affordable” housing (city starter and city stayer studio apartments) administered by the Evolve Housing Group.
Billed at 15 per cent of the reclaimed commercial floor ratio for 15 years, it’s almost poetic how neatly those numbers line up, except when one considers the initiative against the entire site, and it works out at about 3 per cent of total dwelling allocation.
Additionally, according to state government guidelines, “affordable” either means a capped percentage of household income, or somewhere in the ballpark of 20-25 per cent lower than open market value depending on the arrangements with the provider, which if you’ve been looking lately, you know what you know.
In case you are wondering, the state government estimation of the median rent for a one-bedroom unit in St Peters is currently in the vicinity of $450 to $630 per week. Whereas a quick check of a real estate platform in early August 2026, with prices set from lowest to highest, showed one apartment at $630 a week, and I found myself wondering what was wrong with it. The next started at about 800 per week, and the search went up from there, which in turn had me equally baffled, because how is the market bearing this kind of loading?
As to whether we’re going to end up with more “poor doors” reminiscent of Barangaroo and other locations, where residents in the affordable housing component of apartment blocks are restricted to using a back entrance and denied access to various facilities on the premises such as the pool and gymnasium, is yet to be seen.
Over several years, the site has been passed like a very expensive and increasingly ambitious and financially lucrative hot potato between developers.
Beginning as a more commercially focused vision with the potential for 185 apartments above (for that warm and fuzzy community feel), the site has quietly grown with each new design and development application, adding a storey or two here, and a building there.
The 2021 development application had opted for 200 or so apartments. The final approval for the proposed development by the state government contains an amended consent order for a final 471 apartments, a “tiny” 255 per cent increase in the size of the original potato.
According to Cox Architecture, the proposal has not been without adversity, including a trip to the Land and Environment Court in 2023.
As with any large, long-running development, the approval and design process went through multiple iterations that appear to have, albeit begrudgingly, relented under pressure to improve the apartment layouts, natural lighting, access, building ventilation and the public realm outcomes.
Previous architectural plans reveal an argumentative process that highlights the absolute essentiality of external accountability and feedback mechanisms to ensure a modicum of practicality for basic living conditions is met, signs that the NSW planning system has some life in it yet.
Experts and the community alike wonder if this will be enough to ensure that all apartments are liveable, with reports of some apartments gaining less than four hours of direct sunshine on a winter’s day.
Natural drainage and over-shadowing of public areas are also anticipated to be of concern from a resident comfort and usability perspective, as is the management of rubbish, car parking, and the literal lack of private open space for residents.
Balcony style apartments, for example, have been described as little more than glorified floor to ceiling windows.
But, as always, proponents of the development are excited about the place-based activation, pointing to the early signs of success for those businesses already installed in the precinct as a sign of what’s to come.
Obviously, the state government agrees, citing the generation of new housing, jobs, and public open space as their top reason for approving the plans. All of which are great on paper but can be lost in translation. This is particularly problematic for public open space, but that is another story.
The community on the other hand, are less enamoured by the “soon to be oasis of modern rustic living”. There were 98 community objections from a total of 113 submissions received throughout the 28 days the latest development proposal was on public exhibition.
That’s a vote of 87 per cent against. If this were a reality television show, one would assume this meant the tribe had spoken. One community member stated that while they had supported the previous plans for the development, this one was too big and no longer fit well with the surrounding character of the area.
The state government noted that in response to the low numbers of community consultation reported on the project, community engagement had been “attempted” in accordance with relevant policies and regulations, and that all other topic area objections had been considered accordingly.
Locals at busy café on a sunny Sunday morning said that they were shocked to learn of the development and that it is being delivered through a state government-based mechanism.
The inference was that the public exhibition notice had not come through local council channels (as had previous notices for public exhibition and changes for the site). Thus, unless you were a devotee of the NSW planning system, how would you know to look anywhere else?
This raises questions regarding the efficacy of state-based community feedback mechanisms but also helps explain why the numbers for community engagement were relatively low. Local residents in the inner west are nothing if not passionate about the character of their local area. This is reflected in the high number of submissions received by local council in relation to other localised development application notices.
It will be interesting to see how things shape up once the community become more familiar with state-based processes, and how the Housing Delivery Authority responds in turn.
In the meantime, I am fairly certain the naming of Precinct 75 is not a coded message to introduce the idea of a new dystopian hierarchy. Rather, it is a quaint reference to a coordinate on a map for Mary Street that happens to have stuck. But just in case, for all of us shaped by the housing market, in the words of Suzanne Collins, “May the odds ever be in your favour!”
